Wavefront steering of elastic shear vertical waves in solids via a composite-plate-based metasurface

Abstract

We report a novel approach to control the wavefronts of shear vertical (SV) waves in solids using metasurfaces constituted by a stacked array of composite plates, which are composed of two connecting parts made of different materials. The metasurfaces are connected at two ends to the half-space solids where the elastic SV waves propagate. The incident SV waves in the left half-space solid induce flexural waves in the composite plates and subsequently are converted back to SV waves in the right half-space solid. The time delay of flexural waves in each composite plate of the metasurfaces is tuned through the varying length of the two connecting components. To quantitatively evaluate the time delay in each composite plate, a theoretical model for analyzing the phase of the transmitted SV waves is developed based on the Mindlin plate theory. To control the SV waves at will, each composite plate in the metasurface is delicately designed according to the proposed theoretical model. For illustrative purposes, two metasurfaces are designed and numerically validated.