Zhengyou Liu

Negative refraction of acoustic waves in two-dimensional phononic crystals

Negative refraction of acoustic waves in two-dimensional phononic crystals has been demonstrated through both analysis and exact numerical simulation. The methods to achieve this behavior have been discussed. A microsuperlens for acoustic waves has also been designed. It is shown that refractive devices based on phononic crystals behave in a manner similar to that of optical systems. Therefore, a negative square root of the effective density or negative refraction index for acoustic waves can be introduced to describe this phenomena very well as the case of electromagnetic waves in the photonic crystals.

Anomalous refraction of airborne sound through ultrathin metasurfaces

Similar to their optic counterparts, acoustic components are anticipated to flexibly tailor the propagation of sound. However, the practical applications, e.g. for audible sound with large wavelengths, are frequently hampered by the issue of device thickness. Here we present an effective design of metasurface structures that can deflect the transmitted airborne sound in an anomalous way. This flat lens, made of spatially varied coiling-slit subunits, has a thickness of deep subwavelength. By elaborately optimizing its microstructures, the proposed lens exhibits high performance in steering sound wavefronts. Good agreement has been demonstrated experimentally by a sample around the frequency 2.55 kHz, incident with a Gaussian beam at normal or oblique incidence. This study may open new avenues for numerous daily life applications, such as controlling indoor sound effects by decorating rooms with light metasurface walls.

Observation of topological valley transport of sound in sonic crystals

Valleytronics — exploiting a system’s pseudospin degree of freedom — is being increasingly explored in sonic crystals. Now, valley transport of sound is reported for a macroscopic triangular-lattice array of rod-like scatterers in a 2D air waveguide.

Elastic wave band gaps for three-dimensional phononic crystals with two structural units

We investigated the absolute elastic wave band gaps in three-dimensional systems consisting of steel inclusions embedded in plastic matrix. Numerical results show that the configurations formed by inserting an additional steel object (either a sphere of different size or a cube) into each unit cell of a simple cubic structure with spherical steel inclusions, exhibit larger absolute elastic wave band gaps compared with the original simple cubic structure. However, for simple cubic structures originally consisting of steel cubes embedded in plastic matrix, it shows inserting additional cubes results in smaller band gaps.

Asymmetric acoustic gratings

The unidirectional transmission of acoustic waves is realized by a simple geometrically asymmetric steel grating structure. This exotic phenomenon stems from the one-way diffraction effect induced by the different periods of the slits on the both surfaces of the sample. And the frequency range of unidirectional transmission is simply determined by the structure periods. The experimental results agree well with the theoretical simulation. This remarkable effect is expected potential applications in ultrasonic devices, such as acoustic rectifiers and acoustic diodes.

Valley vortex states in sonic crystals

Summary form only given. Valleytronics is quickly emerging as an exciting field in fundamental and applied research. In this Letter, we study the acoustic version of valley states in sonic crystals and reveal a vortex nature of such states. Besides the selection rules established for exciting valley polarized states, a mimicked valley Hall effect of sound is proposed further. The extraordinary chirality of valley vortex states, detectable in experiments, may open new possibility in sound manipulations. This is appealing to scalar acoustics that lacks spin degree of freedom inherently. Besides, the valley selection enables a handy way to create vortex matter in acoustics, in which the vortex chirality can be controlled flexibly. Potential applications can be anticipated with the exotic interaction of acoustic vortices with matter, such as to trigger the rotation of the trapped microparticles without contact.

Mode-selecting acoustic filter by using resonant tunneling of two-dimensional double phononic crystals

In this letter, we investigated the resonant tunneling of elastic waves through double phononic potential barriers formed by two slabs of two-dimensional phononic crystals consisting of pure solid components. It is found that the resonant tunneling longitudinal waves can be distinguished easily from the resonant tunneling transverse waves. Thus, such double-barrier structures can be served as a mode-selecting acoustic filter, used to pick out the single longitudinal wave component or transverse wave component at a certain frequency.

Acoustic Transmission Enhancement through a Periodically Structured Stiff Plate without Any Opening

We report both experimentally and theoretically that enhanced acoustic transmission can occur in the subwavelength region through a thin but stiff structured plate without any opening. This exotic acoustic phenomenon is essentially distinct from the previous related studies originated from, either collectively or individually, the interaction of the incident wave with openings in previous structures. It is attributed to the structure-induced resonant excitation of the nonleaky Lamb modes that exist intrinsically in the uniform elastic plate. Our finding should have an impact on ultrasonic applications.We report an observation of the extraordinary high reflection of acoustic waves in water by thin epoxy plates partitioned by subwavelength cuts, whereas such plates without structure are acoustically-transparent as the acoustic properties of epoxy are close to water. It is demonstrated that this exotic phenomenon results from the resonant excitation of the local modes within the individual pieces derived by the cuts. The experiment agrees well with the theory.

Subwavelength imaging by a simple planar acoustic superlens

We experimentally realized a planar acoustic superlens by a simple structure consisting of periodically arrayed rigid slabs. Based on the excitation of guided modes and the moderate amplification of the evanescent waves, we have broken the diffraction limit and obtained a subwavelength image with a half-power beamwidth of 0.07λ. All the experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical simulations via finite difference time domain method.

High performance of polyimide/CaCu3Ti4O12@Ag hybrid films with enhanced dielectric permittivity and low dielectric loss

This work reports the excellent dielectric properties of polyimide (PI) embedded with CaCu3Ti4O12(CCTO)/Ag nanoparticles (CCTO@Ag). By functionalizing the surface of CCTO nanoparticles with Ag coating, the dielectric permittivity of PI/CCTO@Ag composites is significantly increased to 103 (100 Hz) at 3 vol% filler loading. The enhancement of dielectric permittivity is attributed to the increment of conductivity of the interlayer between CCTO and PI by Ag, which enhances the space charge polarization and Maxwell–Wagner–Sillars (MWS) effect. The experimental results fit well with percolation theory. Moreover, the low loss (0.018 at 100 Hz) achieved is attributed to the blockage of charge transfer by insulating polyimide chains. It is shown that the electrical field distortion is significantly improved by decorating the surface of CCTO nanoparticles with Ag using Comsol Multiphysics. This plays an important role in the enhancement of the dielectric properties.