Xu Ni

Acoustic topological insulator and robust one-way sound transport

The acoustic analogue of a topological insulator is shown: a metamaterial exhibiting one-way sound transport along its edge. The system — a graphene-like array of stainless-steel rods — is a promising new platform for exploring topological phenomena.

Topologically protected one-way edge mode in networks of acoustic resonators with circulating air flow

Recent explorations of topology in physical systems have led to a new paradigm of condensed matters characterized by topologically protected states and phase transition, for example, topologically protected photonic crystals enabled by magneto-optical effects. However, in other wave systems such as acoustics, topological states cannot be simply reproduced due to the absence of similar magnetics-related sound-matter interactions in naturally available materials. Here, we propose an acoustic topological structure by creating an effective gauge magnetic field for sound using circularly flowing air in the designed acoustic ring resonators. The created gauge magnetic field breaks the time-reversal symmetry, and therefore topological properties can be designed to be nontrivial with non-zero Chern numbers verified by a tight-binding model and thus to enable a topological sonic crystal, in which the topologically protected acoustic edge-state transport is observed, featuring robust one-way propagation characteristics against a variety of topological defects and impurities. Interestingly, the one-way propagation direction is relevant to the azimuthal order of the resonant mode in the ring resonator which influences the corresponding topological Chern number. Our results open a new venue to non-magnetic topological structures and promise a unique approach to effective manipulation of acoustic interfacial transport at will.

Acoustic cloaking by a near-zero-index phononic crystal

Zero-refractive-index materials may lead to promising applications in various fields. Here, we design and fabricate a near Zero-Refractive-Index (ZRI) material using a phononic crystal (PC) composed of a square array of densely packed square iron rods in air. The dispersion relation exhibits a nearly flat band across the Brillouin zone at the reduced frequency f = 0.5443c/a, which is due to Fabry-Perot (FP) resonance. By using a retrieval method, we find that both the effective mass density and the reciprocal of the effective bulk modulus are close to zero at frequencies near the flat band. We also propose an equivalent tube network model to explain the mechanisms of the near ZRI effect. This FP-resonance-induced near ZRI material offers intriguing wave manipulation properties. We demonstrate both numerically and experimentally its ability to shield a scattering obstacle and guide acoustic waves through a bent structure.

Accidental degeneracy of double Dirac cones in a phononic crystal.

Artificial honeycomb lattices with Dirac cone dispersion provide a macroscopic platform to study the massless Dirac quasiparticles and their novel geometric phases. In this paper, a quadruple-degenerate state is achieved at the center of the Brillouin zone in a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice phononic crystal, which is a result of accidental degeneracy of two double-degenerate states. In the vicinity of the quadruple-degenerate state, the dispersion relation is linear. Such quadruple degeneracy is analyzed by rigorous representation theory of groups. Using method, a reduced Hamiltonian is obtained to describe the linear Dirac dispersion relations of this quadruple-degenerate state, which is well consistent with the simulation results. Near such accidental degeneracy, we observe some unique properties in wave propagating, such as defect-insensitive propagating character and the Talbot effect.

Acoustic asymmetric transmission based on time-dependent dynamical scattering.

An acoustic asymmetric transmission device exhibiting unidirectional transmission property for acoustic waves is extremely desirable in many practical scenarios. Such a unique property may be realized in various configurations utilizing acoustic Zeeman effects in moving media as well as frequency-conversion in passive nonlinear acoustic systems and in active acoustic systems. Here we demonstrate a new acoustic frequency conversion process in a time-varying system, consisting of a rotating blade and the surrounding air. The scattered acoustic waves from this time-varying system experience frequency shifts, which are linearly dependent on the blade’s rotating frequency. Such scattering mechanism can be well described theoretically by an acoustic linear time-varying perturbation theory. Combining such time-varying scattering effects with highly efficient acoustic filtering, we successfully develop a tunable acoustic unidirectional device with 20 dB power transmission contrast ratio between two counter propagation directions at audible frequencies.

Acoustic rainbow trapping by coiling up space

We numerically realize the acoustic rainbow trapping effect by tapping an air waveguide with space-coiling metamaterials. Due to the high refractive-index of the space-coiling metamaterials, our device is more compact compared to the reported trapped-rainbow devices. A numerical model utilizing effective parameters is also calculated, whose results are consistent well with the direct numerical simulation of space-coiling structure. Moreover, such device with the capability of dropping different frequency components of a broadband incident temporal acoustic signal into different channels can function as an acoustic wavelength division de-multiplexer. These results may have potential applications in acoustic device design such as an acoustic filter and an artificial cochlea.

Topological phononic states of underwater sound based on coupled ring resonators

We report a design of topological phononic states for underwater sound using arrays of acoustic coupled ring resonators. In each individual ring resonator, two degenerate acoustic modes, corresponding to clockwise and counter-clockwise propagation, are treated as opposite pseudospins. The gapless edge states arise in the bandgap resulting in protected pseudospin-dependent sound transportation, which is a phononic analogue of the quantum spin Hall effect. We also investigate the robustness of the topological sound state, suggesting that the observed pseudospin-dependent sound transportation remains unless the introduced defects facilitate coupling between the clockwise and counter-clockwise modes (in other words, the original mode degeneracy is broken). The topological engineering of sound transportation will certainly promise unique design for next generation of acoustic devices in sound guiding and switching, especially for underwater acoustic devices.

Surface phononic graphene

Strategic manipulation of wave and particle transport in various media is the key driving force for modern information processing and communication. In a strongly scattering medium, waves and particles exhibit versatile transport characteristics such as localization, tunnelling with exponential decay, ballistic, and diffusion behaviours due to dynamical multiple scattering from strong scatters or impurities. Recent investigations of graphene have offered a unique approach, from a quantum point of view, to design the dispersion of electrons on demand, enabling relativistic massless Dirac quasiparticles, and thus inducing low-loss transport either ballistically or diffusively. Here, we report an experimental demonstration of an artificial phononic graphene tailored for surface phonons on a LiNbO3 integrated platform. The system exhibits Dirac quasiparticle-like transport, that is, pseudo-diffusion at the Dirac point, which gives rise to a thickness-independent temporal beating for transmitted pulses, an analogue of Zitterbewegung effects. The demonstrated fully integrated artificial phononic graphene platform here constitutes a step towards on-chip quantum simulators of graphene and unique monolithic electro-acoustic integrated circuits.

Spatial separation of spoof surface acoustic waves on the graded groove grating

In this paper, a rigid surface decorated with an array of grooves with graded widths is proposed to get spatial separation of the spoof surface acoustic waves. Because of the intermodal coupling between forward and backward modes on the graded structure, the spoof surface acoustic waves with different frequencies stop propagating ahead and reflect back at different positions of the graded groove grating. The intensity of acoustic field is effectively enhanced near the propagation-stop position due to the slow group velocity. We believe that such system with the capability of energy concentration and wave spatial arrangement by frequencies has potential applications in acoustic wave coupling and absorption.

A new type of artificial structure to achieve broadband omnidirectional acoustic absorption

We present a design for a two-dimensional omnidirectional acoustic absorber that can achieve 98.6% absorption of acoustic waves in water, forming an effective acoustic black hole. This artificial black hole consists of an absorptive core coated with layers of periodically distributed polymer cylinders embedded in water. Effective medium theory describes the response of the coating layers to the acoustic waves. The polymer parameters can be adjusted, allowing practical fabrication of the absorber. Since the proposed structure does not rely on resonances, it is applicable to broad bandwidths. The design might be extended to a variety of applications.