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Concept
Acoustic metamaterial
Summary
An acoustic metamaterial, sonic crystal, or phononic crystal is a material designed to control, direct, and manipulate sound waves or phonons in gases, liquids, and solids (crystal lattices). Sound wave control is accomplished through manipulating parameters such as the bulk modulus β, density ρ, and chirality. They can be engineered to either transmit, or trap and amplify sound waves at certain frequencies. In the latter case, the material is an acoustic resonator. Acoustic metamaterials are used to model and research extremely large-scale acoustic phenomena like seismic waves and earthquakes, but also extremely small-scale phenomena like atoms. The latter is possible due to band gap engineering: acoustic metamaterials can be designed such that they exhibit band gaps for phonons, similar to the existence of band gaps for electrons in solids or electron orbitals in atoms. That has also made the phononic crystal an increasingly widely researched component in quantum technologies and experiments that probe quantum mechanics. Important branches of physics and technology that rely heavily on acoustic metamaterials are negative refractive index material research, and (quantum) optomechanics.
History of metamaterials
Acoustic metamaterials have developed from the research and findings in metamaterials. A novel material was originally proposed by Victor Veselago in 1967, but not realized until some 33 years later. John Pendry produced the basic elements of metamaterials in the late 1990s. His materials were combined, with negative index materials first realized in 2000, broadening the possible optical and material responses. Research in acoustic metamaterials has the same goal of broader material responses with sound waves.
Research employing acoustic metamaterials began in 2000 with the fabrication and demonstration of sonic crystals in a liquid. This was followed by transposing the behavior of the split-ring resonator to research in acoustic metamaterials.
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