A pressing need to develop low-cost, environmentally friendly, and sensitive sensors has arisen with the advent of the always-connected paradigm of the internet-of-things (IoT). In particular, mechanical sensors have been widely studied in recent years for applications ranging from health monitoring, through mechanical biosignals, to structure integrity analysis. On the other hand, innovative ways to implement mechanical actuation have also been the focus of intense research in an attempt to close the circle of human-machine interaction, and move toward applications in flexible electronics. Due to its potential scalability, disposability, and outstanding properties, graphene has been thoroughly studied in the field of mechanical transduction. The applications of graphene in mechanical transduction are reviewed here. An overview of sensor and actuator applications is provided, covering different transduction mechanisms such as piezoresistivity, capacitive sensing, optically interrogated displacement, piezoelectricity, triboelectricity, electrostatic actuation, chemomechanical and thermomechanical actuation, as well as thermoacoustic emission. A critical review of the main approaches is presented within the scope of a wider discussion on the future of this so-called wonder material in the field of mechanical transduction.

A Review on the Applications of Graphene in Mechanical Transduction.

We report ultrasound beam steering based on 2D and 3D flattened acoustic metamaterial Luneburg lenses at 40 kHz. The effective properties of the lenses are obtained by using the quasi-conformal transformation technique and solving the Laplace equation with Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. A 2D lens and a 3D lens were designed and fabricated. The numerical and experimental results with these lenses demonstrate excellent beam steering performance of ultrasonic waves in both near field and far field.

Ultrasound beam steering with flattened acoustic metamaterial Luneburg lens

We experimentally demonstrated a high sensitive gas pressure sensor, which also has more concise processing steps and lower cost. The sensor was fabricated by splicing the single-mode fiber (SMF) and a short section of hollow-core fiber (HCF) which was filled with a Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film to form an enclosed air microcavity with the length of 55 μm. The thin PDMS film also plays a role in reflecting the beam. The thermo-optical effect and the thickness of PDMS film can affect the cavity that is sensitive to external pressure. When the thickness of the PDMS membrane is 3 μm, the measured gas pressure sensitivity reaches to 52.143 nm/Mpa, the linearity is 99.86%, and the cross-sensitivity of the gas pressure over temperature is lower than 2.51 × 10−3 Mpa/°C. Moreover, the compact structure, high sensitivity, high mechanical strength, and convenient fabrication make it suitable for measuring gas pressure in harsh conditions.

Optical Fiber Gas Pressure Sensor Based on Polydimethylsiloxane Microcavity

We report ultrasound beam steering based on 2D and 3D flattened acoustic metamaterial Luneburg lenses at 40 kHz. The effective properties of the lenses are obtained by using the quasi-conformal transformation (QCT) technique and solving the Laplace equation with Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. A 2D lens and a 3D lens were designed and fabricated. The numerical and experimental results with these lenses demonstrate excellent beam steering performance of ultrasonic waves in both near field and far field.

Ultrasound Beam Steering with Flattened Acoustic Metamaterial Luneburg Lens

Dispersive acoustic metamaterials (AMMs) with graded refractive index is promising in acoustic sensing enhancement by providing acoustic rainbow trapping (ART) effect. However, previous solutions to this type of AMMs are based on 2D unit cells that require infinite or very large size in the third dimension; they cannot integrate with conventional acoustic sensors without deteriorating the ability of acoustic wave manipulation. In order to advance their practical applications, this paper proposes an axisymmetric, microphone embedded AMM device with gradient profile as well as gradient plate thickness and gradient gap width along the axis. Both numerical simulations and experiments are performed to examine the ART effect of the proposed AMM device and demonstrate its excellent capacity of acoustic pressure amplification and multi-band acoustic filtering. Deploying a microphone in the gap does not disturb the acoustic field, so the proposed AMM sensor experimentally achieves remarkable acoustic gains over one order of magnitude. Sound waves of different frequencies are picked up by microphones at different gaps, realizing the real-time spatially splitting of the sound spectrum. The proposed AMM provides excellent immunity to broadband noise and a little weak suppression of the single tone noise while significantly amplifying acoustic signals of a given frequency.

An Acoustic Metamaterial-Based Sensor Capable of Multiband Filtering and Amplification

Due to limitations of conventional acoustic probes, full spatial field mapping (both internal and external wave amplitude and phase measurements) in acoustic metamaterials with deep subwavelength structures has not yet been demonstrated. Therefore, many fundamental wave propagation phenomena in acoustic metamaterials remain experimentally unexplored. In this work, we realized a miniature fiber optic acoustic point detector that is capable of omnidirectional detection of complex spatial acoustic fields in various metamaterial structures over a broadband spectrum. By using this probe, we experimentally characterized the wave-structure interactions in an anisotropic metamaterial waveguide. We further demonstrated that the spatial mapping of both internal and external acoustic fields of metamaterial structures can help obtain important wave propagation properties associated with material dispersion and field confinement, and develop an in-depth understanding of the waveguiding physics in metamaterials. The insights and inspirations gained from our experimental studies are valuable not only for the advancement of fundamental metamaterial wave physics but also for the development of functional metamaterial devices such as acoustic lenses, waveguides, and sensors.

Characterization of wave physics in acoustic metamaterials using a fiber optic point detector

Graphene has been known to possess exceptional mechanical properties, including its extremely high Young's modulus and atomic layer thickness. Although there are several reported fiber optic pressure sensors using graphene film, a key question that is not well understood is how the suspended graphene film interacts with the backing air cavity and affects the sensor performance. Based on our previous analytical model, we will show that the sensor performance suffers due to the significantly reduced mechanical sensitivity by the backing cavity. To remedy this limitation, we will, through experimental and numerical methods, investigate two approaches to enhance the sensitivity of fiber optic acoustic pressure sensors using graphene film. First, a graphene-silver composite diaphragm is used to enhance the optical sensitivity by increasing the reflectivity. Compared with a sensor with pure graphene diaphragm, graphene-silver composite can enhance the sensitivity by threefold, while the mechanical sensitivity is largely unchanged. Second, a fiber optic sensor is developed with enlarged backing air volume through the gap between an optical fiber and a silica capillary tube. Experimental results show that the mechanical sensitivity is increased by 10× from the case where the gap side space is filled. For both approaches, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is improved due to the enhanced sensitivity, and COMSOL Thermoviscous acoustics simulation compares well with the experimental results. This study is expected to not only enhance the understanding of fluid-structural interaction in sensor design but also benefit various applications requiring high-performance miniature acoustic sensors.

Zhongshan Wen

Papers

Characterization of wave physics in acoustic metamaterials using a fiber optic point detector

Miniature Fiber Optic Acoustic Pressure Sensors With Air-Backed Graphene Diaphragms.