Electromagnetic Inspired Acoustic Metamaterials:Studying the Applications of Sound-Metastructures Interactions Based on Different Wave Phenomena

This thesis deals with electromagnetic inspired acoustic metamaterials, enabling sound-matter interactions in different wave scenarios that include propagation, guided-waves, radiation, refraction, reflection and transmission. To this end, a particular emphasis is placed on introducing novel applications for acoustic metamaterials operating on each one of the aforementioned wave scenarios. A few years ago, metamaterials have been introduced as a new class of composite artificial materials, engineered to produce unusual effective material properties not readily available in nature. Electromagnetic metamaterials are probably the oldest class of metamaterials, being nowadays in the process of reaching maturity and being proposed for interesting commercial applications. On the other hand, as in most young but not yet mature emerging fields of science, acoustic metamaterials are still providing lots of fertile and unexplored ground for research and study. Despite many inherent physical differences, the propagation of electromagnetic and acoustic waves are both governed by a similar mathematical model, the so-called Helmholtz wave equation. The main purpose of this work is to leverage this amazing similarity by translating recent advances in electromagnetic metamaterials into their corresponding, previously unseen, applications in acoustics. The first contribution of this thesis is to adapt the classic electromagnetic transmission-line theory to allow the design of acoustic metamaterials. The proposed circuit-based theory finds a direct application in the design of composite right/left hand transmission-line metamaterials, which yield novel guided-wave applications for acoustic metamaterials. Then, the developed theory is leveraged to model and achieve optimal design of different acoustic metamaterial-based devices, such as leaky-wave antennas and reflector-type metasurfaces. The second part of the thesis spins around acoustic leaky-wave antennas and their different functionalities, showing that they are able to act as acoustic dispersive prisms in the refraction mode and as acoustic single sensor direction finder in the radiation mode. Studying reflection phenomena in sound-metasurface interactions constitutes the next part of this thesis, where a membrane-capped cavity is introduced performing as an ultra-thin unit-cell for reflective acoustic metasurfaces. This leads to exciting applications of the concept, like acoustic reflectarray antennas and acoustic metasurface skin-cloaks Finally, the last part of this thesis deals with transmission phenomena in acoustic metasurfaces and, especially, in orbital angular momentum metasurfaces. This concept results in the design of an innovative labyrinthine-type helicoidal unit-cell that is used for phase coding a surface and transforming impinging acoustic wavefronts into transmitted helical wavefronts

Optimization of an acoustic leaky-wave antenna based on acoustic metamaterial

In recent years, an increasing number of pioneering studies have been carried out in the field of acoustic metamaterials, following the path of electromagnetic metamaterials. These artificial engineered materials are designed in such a way so as to achieve new macroscopic properties, like negative refraction, that are not readily present in nature. While the design and the fabrication of these artificial materials is a hot topic among scientists in different fields of physics such as photonic, electromagnetic, acoustic and recently mechanic, an important part of the scientific research is now oriented towards the identification of actual applications for these structures. As the novel idea of metamaterial was first developed in the electromagnetic realm and for the microwave frequency range, it is somehow more mature in these fields than in acoustics. Metamaterial applications are now widely developed in electromagnetics especially for the design of new antenna. Among other examples, metamaterial concepts are aiming at reducing the coupling between two adjacent radiating elements of the array and increasing the operating bandwidth of radiating elements. It is also used for phase compensation in microwave transistors, and many more applications are rising in the recent literature. In year 2009, in analogy with electromagnetic transmission line metamaterial, our group proposed a concept of acoustic transmission line metamaterial, consisting of a waveguide periodically loaded with membranes along the duct, and transverse open channels (denoted “stubs”). Based on our proposed structure and in analogy with applications of transmission line electromagnetic metamaterials, researchers proposed the idea of an acoustic counterpart to the “backward wave antenna”. These antennas or radiating devices have a very special property such that the radiation angle or the directivity changes with the frequency. In this article, a comprehensive, step by step, design methodology for acoustic backward wave antenna is presented. For this purpose we use the model proposed in our 2009 publication for acoustic transmission line metamaterial, but we focus the discussion on the optimization of the antenna performance. We also propose some closed form formulas for the practical design of such devices, and a formal validation of the structure is proposed using Comsol Multiphysics

Generation of acoustic helical wavefronts using metasurfaces

It has been shown that acoustic waves with helical wavefronts can carry angular momentum, which can be transmitted towards a propagating medium. Such a wave field can be achieved by using a planar array of electroacoustic transducers, forming a given spatial distribution of phased sound sources which produce the desired helical wavefronts. Here, we introduce a technique to generate acoustic vortices, based on the passive acoustic metasurface concept. The proposed metasurface is composed of space-coiled cylindrical unit cells transmitting sound pressure with a controllable phase shift, which are arranged in a discretized circular configuration, and thus passively transforming an incident plane wavefront into the desired helical wavefront. This method presents the advantage of overcoming the restrictions on using many acoustic sources, and it is implemented with a transmitting metasurface which can be easily three-dimensionally printed. The proposed straightforward design principle can be adopted for easy production of acoustic angular momentum with minimum complexity and using a single source

Development of Leaky-Wave Antenna Applications with Acoustics Metamaterials: from the Acoustic Dispersive Prism to Sound Direction Finding with a Single Microphone

Recent studies have focused on developing metamaterials for acoustic applications, inspired by electromagnetics concepts. The acoustic leaky-wave antenna is amongst the most investigated. Despite the unfavourable properties of conventional matter and structures with respect to sound dispersion and radiation, interesting engineering processes have been recently proposed that are likely to allow such peculiar properties. After presenting the developed one-dimensional leaky-wave antenna design, this paper discusses two pioneering applications of the latter: the Acoustic Dispersive Prism and the Single-Microphone Direction Finding

Acoustic carpet cloak based on an ultrathin metasurface

An acoustic metasurface carpet cloak based on membrane-capped cavities is proposed and investigated numerically. This design has been chosen for allowing ultrathin geometries, although adapted to airborne sound frequencies in the range of 1 kHz (λ≈30 cm), surpassing the designs reported in the literature in terms of thinness. A formulation of generalized Snell's laws is first proposed, mapping the directions of the incident and reflected waves to the metasurface phase function. This relation is then applied to achieve a prescribed wavefront reflection direction, for a given incident direction, by controlling the acoustic impedance grading along the metasurface. The carpet cloak performance of the proposed acoustic metasurface is then assessed on a triangular bump obstacle, generally considered as a baseline configuration in the literature

Exploiting the leaky-wave properties of transmission-line metamaterials for single-microphone direction finding

A transmission-line acoustic metamaterial is an engineered, periodic arrangement of relatively small unit-cells, the acoustic properties of which can be manipulated to achieve anomalous physical behaviours. These exotic properties open the door to practical applications, such as an acoustic leaky-wave antenna, through the implementation of radiating channels along the metamaterial. In the transmitting mode, such a leaky-wave antenna is capable of steering sound waves in frequency-dependent directions. Used in reverse, the antenna presents a well defined direction-frequency behaviour. In this paper, an acoustic leaky-wave structure is presented in the receiving mode. It is shown that it behaves as a sound source direction-finding device using only one sensor. After a general introduction of the acoustic leaky-wave antenna concept, its radiation pattern and radiation efficiency are expressed in closed form. Then, numerical simulations and experimental assessments of the proposed transmission-line based structure, implementing only one sensor at one termination, are presented. It is shown that such a structure is capable of finding the direction of an incoming sound wave, from backward to forward, based on received sound power spectra. This introduces the concept of sound source localization without resorting to beam-steering techniques based on multiple sensors

Acoustic dispersive prism

The optical dispersive prism is a well-studied element, which allows separating white light into its constituent spectral colors, and stands in nature as water droplets. In analogy to this definition, the acoustic dispersive prism should be an acoustic device with capability of splitting a broadband acoustic wave into its constituent Fourier components. However, due to the acoustical nature of materials as well as the design and fabrication difficulties, there is neither any natural acoustic counterpart of the optical prism, nor any artificial design reported so far exhibiting an equivalent acoustic behaviour. Here, based on exotic properties of the acoustic transmission-line metamaterials and exploiting unique physical behaviour of acoustic leaky-wave radiation, we report the first acoustic dispersive prism, effective within the audible frequency range 800 Hz - 1300 Hz. The dispersive nature, and consequently the frequency-dependent refractive index of the metamaterial are exploited to split the sound waves towards different and frequency-dependent directions. Meanwhile, the leaky-wave nature of the structure facilitates the sound wave radiation into the ambient medium

Acoustic Leaky-Wave Antenna

In the last years, the number of studies carried out in the field of acoustic metamaterials has significantly increased. In year 2009, our group proposed a concept of acoustic composite right/left hand transmission line (CRLH-TL) metamaterial, consisting of a waveguide periodically loaded with membranes along the duct, and transverse open channels (denoted “stubs”). It has then paved the way to antenna applications among which “Acoustic Leaky-Wave Antenna”. As, these antennas have very special properties such as frequency-dependant directivity, several practical applications are foreseen in the future. However, preliminary experimental work show that the low radiation efficiency of such axisymmetrical structures prevents its use in practice. To counteract this issue, an idea would consist in designing a similar structure, but with plane-symmetry rather than axial-symmetry. In this article, following our path on maturing the Acoustic Leaky-Wave antenna we propose an optimized design which unlike our previous structure is only radiating in the upper plane

A Compact Single-Layer Dual-Band Microstrip Antenna for Satellite Applications

In this letter, a compact single-layer, single-feed, dual-frequency microstrip antenna with a high frequency ratio is proposed. This antenna has a broadside and symmetrical radiation patterns suitable for space-borne applications. The prototype was fabricated on a Rogers RT/duroid 5880 substrate with a relative permittivity of 2.2 and thickness of 1.58 mm. The dual-band behavior is achieved by a shorting pin at 1.7–1.706 and 8.011–8.277 GHz with the frequency ratio of 4.75. In addition, the antenna is miniaturized by 46% compared to the conventional rectangular patch