A sound future for acoustic metamaterials

Abstract

The field of acoustic metamaterials borrowed ideas from electromagnetics and optics to create engineered structures that exhibit desired fluid or fluid-like properties for the propagation of sound. These metamaterials offer the possibility of manipulating and controlling sound waves in ways that are challenging or impossible with conventional materials. Metamaterials with zero, or 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. And active acoustic metamaterials use external control and power to create effective material properties that are fundamentally not possible with passive structures. Challenges remain, including the development of efficient techniques for fabricating large-scale metamaterial structures and, critically, converting exciting laboratory experiments into practically useful devices. In this presentation, I will outline the recent history of the field, describe some of the designs and properties of materials with unusual acoustic parameters, discuss examples of extreme manipulation of sound, and finally, provide a personal perspective on future directions in the field.