Manipulating acoustic wave reflection by a nonlinear elastic metasurface

Abstract

The acoustic wave reflection properties of a nonlinear elastic metasurface, derived from resonant nonlinear elastic elements, are theoretically and numerically studied. The metasurface is composed of a two degree-of-freedom mass-spring system with quadratic elastic nonlinearity. The possibility of converting, during the reflection process, most of the fundamental incoming wave energy into the second harmonic wave is shown, both theoretically and numerically, by means of a proper design of the nonlinear metasurface. The theoretical results from the harmonic balance method for a monochromatic source are compared with time domain simulations for a wave packet source. This protocol allows analyzing the dynamics of the nonlinear reflection process in the metasurface as well as exploring the limits of the operating frequency bandwidth. The reported methodology can be applied to a wide variety of nonlinear metasurfaces, thus possibly extending the family of exotic nonlinear reflection processes.