We present a dynamically tunable mechanism of wave transmission in 1D helicoidal phononic crystals in a shape similar to DNA structures. These helicoidal architectures allow slanted nonlinear contact among cylin- drical constituents, and the relative torsional movements can dynamically tune the contact stiffness between neighboring cylinders. This results in cross-talking between in-plane torsional and out-of-plane longitudinal waves. We numerically demonstrate their versatile wave mixing and controllable dispersion behavior in both wavenumber and frequency domains. Based on this principle, a suggestion towards an acoustic configuration bearing parallels to a transistor is further proposed, in which longitudinal waves can be switched on/off through torsional waves.
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