Klein-Like Tunneling of Sound via Negative Index Metamaterials

Abstract

Klein tunneling is a counterintuitive quantum-mechanical phenomenon, predicting perfect transmission of relativistic particles through higher-energy barriers. This phenomenon was shown to be supported at normal incidence in graphene due to pseudospin conservation. Here I show that Klein-tunneling analogy can occur in classical systems, and remarkably, does not rely on mimicking graphene's spinor wave-function structure. Instead, the mechanism requires a particular form of constitutive parameters of the penetrated medium, yielding transmission properties identical to the quantum tunneling in graphene. I demonstrate this result by simulating tunneling of sound in a two-dimensional acoustic metamaterial. More strikingly, I show that by introducing a certain form of anisotropy, the tunneling can be made unimpeded for any incidence angle, while keeping most of its original Klein dispersion properties. This phenomenon may be denoted by the omnidirectional Klein-like tunneling. The suggested tunneling mechanism and its omnidirectional variant may be useful for applications requiring lossless and direction-independent transmission of classical waves.