You could use a custom search field. I think I would construct something like this:
- Create an entity (Search) with an empty string attribute (query)
- Display the string attribute on your page, this acts as the search field
- Set a search button next to it, and execute a microflow when clicking. You can now retrieve objects from the database based on the search query (and display them in a list); within this microflow you can add the & characters0
You could also provide a search option attribute so you can execute different search logic when pressing the search button.