Acoustic metamaterials can manipulate and control sound waves in ways that are not possible in conventional materials. Metamaterials with zero, or even negative, refractive index for sound offer new possibilities for acoustic imaging and for the control of sound at subwavelength scales. The combination of transformation acoustics theory and highly anisotropic acoustic metamaterials enables precise control over the deformation of sound fields, which can be used, for example, to hide or cloak objects from incident acoustic energy. Active acoustic metamaterials use external control to create effective material properties that are not possible with passive structures and have led to the development of dynamically reconfigurable, loss-compensating and parity–time-symmetric materials for sound manipulation. Challenges remain, including the development of efficient techniques for fabricating large-scale metamaterial structures and converting laboratory experiments into useful devices. In this Review, we outline the designs and properties of materials with unusual acoustic parameters (for example, negative refractive index), discuss examples of extreme manipulation of sound and, finally, provide an overview of future directions in the field. Acoustic metamaterials can be used manipulate sound waves with a high degree of control. Their applications include acoustic imaging and cloaking. This Review outlines the designs and properties of these materials, discussing transformation acoustics theory, anisotropic materials and active acoustic metamaterials.

Controlling sound with acoustic metamaterials

Dynamics of Phononic Materials and Structures: Historical Origins, Recent Progress, and Future Outlook

Within a time span of 15 years, acoustic metamaterials have emerged from academic curiosity to become an active field driven by scientific discoveries and diverse application potentials. This review traces the development of acoustic metamaterials from the initial findings of mass density and bulk modulus frequency dispersions in locally resonant structures to the diverse functionalities afforded by the perspective of negative constitutive parameter values, and their implications for acoustic wave behaviors. We survey the more recent developments, which include compact phase manipulation structures, superabsorption, and actively controllable metamaterials as well as the new directions on acoustic wave transport in moving fluid, elastic, and mechanical metamaterials, graphene-inspired metamaterials, and structures whose characteristics are best delineated by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Many of the novel acoustic metamaterial structures have transcended the original definition of metamaterials as arising from the collective manifestations of constituent resonating units, but they continue to extend wave manipulation functionalities beyond those found in nature.

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Acoustic metamaterials: From local resonances to broad horizons.

The attenuation of low-frequency sound has been a challenging task because the intrinsic dissipation of materials is inherently weak in this regime. Here we present a thin-film acoustic metamaterial, comprising an elastic membrane decorated with asymmetric rigid platelets that aims to totally absorb low-frequency airborne sound at selective resonance frequencies ranging from 100-1,000 Hz. Our samples can reach almost unity absorption at frequencies where the relevant sound wavelength in air is three orders of magnitude larger than the membrane thickness. At resonances, the flapping motion of the rigid platelets leads naturally to large elastic curvature energy density at their perimeter regions. As the flapping motions couple only minimally to the radiation modes, the overall energy density in the membrane can be two-to-three orders of magnitude larger than the incident wave energy density at low frequencies, forming in essence an open cavity.

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Dark acoustic metamaterials as super absorbers for low-frequency sound

Acoustic impedance-matched surfaces do not reflect incident waves. Traditional means of acoustic absorption have so far resulted in imperfect impedance matching and bulky structures, or require costly and sophisticated electrical design. Inspired by electromagnetic metamaterials, a subwavelength acoustically reflecting surface with hybrid resonances and impedance-matched to airborne sound at tunable frequencies is now demonstrated.

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Acoustic metasurface with hybrid resonances

We present the experimental realization and theoretical understanding of a membrane-type acoustic metamaterial with very simple construct, capable of breaking the mass density law of sound attenuation in the 100--1000 Hz regime by a significant margin ($\ensuremath{\sim}200$ times). Owing to the membrane's weak elastic moduli, there can be low-frequency oscillation patterns even in a small elastic film with fixed boundaries defined by a rigid grid. The vibrational eigenfrequencies can be tuned by placing a small mass at the center of the membrane sample. Near-total reflection is achieved at a frequency between two eigenmodes where the in-plane average of normal displacement is zero. By using finite element simulations, negative dynamic mass is explicitly demonstrated at frequencies around the total reflection frequency. Excellent agreement between theory and experiment is obtained.

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Membrane-Type Acoustic Metamaterial with Negative Dynamic Mass

We present the experimental realization and theoretical explanation of a membrane-type acoustic metamaterial of very simple structure,capable of breaking the mass density law of sound attenuation in the 100—1000Hz regime by a significant margin(~200 times).Due to the membrane's weak elastic moduli,low frequency oscillation patterns can be found even in a small elastic film with fixed boundaries defined by a rigid grid.The vibrational eigenfrequencies can be tuned by placing a small mass at the center of the membrane sample.Near-total reflection is achieved at a frequency in between two eigenmodes where the in-plane average of the normal displacement is zero.By using finite element simulations,a negative dynamic mass is explicitly demonstrated at frequencies around the total reflection frequency.Excellent agreement between theory and experiment is obtained.We also show that the present mechanism can explain the phenomenon of total microwave transmission through subwavelength slits in metallic fractals,at frequencies intermediate between two local resonances.

Membrane-type acoustic metamaterial with negative dynamic mass

We show experimentally that thin membrane-type acoustic metamaterials can serve as a total reflection nodal surface at certain frequencies. The small decay length of the evanescent waves at these frequencies implies that several membrane panels can be stacked to achieve broad-frequency effectiveness. We report the realization of acoustic metamaterial panels with thickness ≤15 mm and weight ≤3 kg/m2 demonstrating 19.5 dB of internal sound transmission loss (STL) at around 200 Hz, and stacked panels with thickness ≤60 mm and weight ≤15 kg/m2 demonstrating an average STL of >40 dB over a broad range from 50 to 1000 Hz.

N.H. Chan

Papers

Membrane-Type Acoustic Metamaterial with Negative Dynamic Mass

Membrane-type acoustic metamaterial with negative dynamic mass

Acoustic metamaterial panels for sound attenuation in the 50–1000 Hz regime