Phononic crystal with adaptive connectivity

Selective dynamic band gap tuning in metamaterials using graded photoresponsive resonator arrays

The introduction of metamaterials has provided new possibilities to manipulate the propagation of waves in different fields of physics, ranging from electromagnetism to acoustics. However, despite the variety of configurations proposed so far, most solutions lack dynamic tunability, i.e. their functionality cannot be altered post-fabrication. Our work overcomes this limitation by employing a photo-responsive polymer to fabricate a simple metamaterial structure and enable tuning of its elastic properties using visible light. The structure of the metamaterial consists of graded resonators in the form of an array of pillars, each giving rise to different resonances and transmission band gaps. Selective laser illumination can then tune the resonances and their frequencies individually or collectively, thus yielding many degrees of freedom in the tunability of the filtered or transmitted wave frequencies, similar to playing a keyboard, where illuminating each pillar corresponds to playing a different note. This concept can be used to realize low-power active devices for elastic wave control, including beam splitters, switches and filters.This article is part of the theme issue 'Current developments in elastic and acoustic metamaterials science (Part 2)'.

Ultralight, strong, and self-reprogrammable mechanical metamaterials

Versatile programmable materials have long been envisioned that can reconfigure themselves to adapt to changing use cases in adaptive infrastructure, space exploration, disaster response, and more. We introduce a robotic structural system as an implementation of programmable matter, with mechanical performance and scale on par with conventional high-performance materials and truss systems. Fiber-reinforced composite truss-like building blocks form strong, stiff, and lightweight lattice structures as mechanical metamaterials. Two types of mobile robots operate over the exterior surface and through the interior of the system, performing transport, placement, and reversible fastening using the intrinsic lattice periodicity for indexing and metrology. Leveraging programmable matter algorithms to achieve scalability in size and complexity, this system design enables robust collective automated assembly and reconfiguration of large structures with simple robots. We describe the system design and experimental results from a 256-unit cell assembly demonstration and lattice mechanical testing, as well as a demonstration of disassembly and reconfiguration. The assembled structural lattice material exhibits ultralight mass density (0.0103 grams per cubic centimeter) with high strength and stiffness for its weight ( 11.38 kilopascals and 1.1129 megapascals, respectively), a material performance realm appropriate for applications like space structures. With simple robots and structure, high mass-specific structural performance, and competitive throughput, this system demonstrates the potential for self-reconfiguring autonomous metamaterials for diverse applications.

Photo-responsive hydrogel-based re-programmable metamaterials

This paper explores a novel programmable metamaterial using stimuli-responsive hydrogels with a demonstration of bandgap formation and tuning. Specifically, a photo-responsive hydrogel beam that can achieve re-programmable periodicity in geometric and material properties through patterned light irradiation is designed. Hydrogels consist of polymeric networks and water molecules. Many unique properties of hydrogels, including bio-compatibility, stimuli-responsiveness, and low dissipation make them ideal for enabling re-programmable metamaterials for manipulating structural dynamic response and wave propagation characteristics. Bandgap generation and tunability in photo-responsive hydrogel-based metamaterial (in the form of a diatomic phononic chain) as well as the effects of system parameters such as light exposure pattern and photo-sensitive group concentration on the bandgap width and center frequency are systematically studied. In agreement with finite-element model simulations, it is observed that an increase in light exposure region size reduces both the bandgap width and center frequency, while an increase in the concentration of photo-sensitive group increases bandgap width, attenuation and reduces its center frequency. This work unveils the potential of stimuli-response hydrogels as a new class of low-loss soft metamaterials, unlike most other soft materials that are too lossy to sustain and exploit wave phenomena.

Designing architectural materials: from granular form to functional granular material

Designed granular materials are a novel class of architectural material system. Following one of the key paradigms of designed matter, material form and material function are closely interrelated in these systems. In this context, the article aims to contribute a parametric particle design model as an interface for this interrelation. A granular material is understood as an aggregation of large numbers of individual particles between which only short-range repulsive contact forces are acting. Granular materials are highly pertinent material systems for architecture. Due to the fact that they can act both as a solid and a liquid, they can be recycled and reconfigured multiple times and are thus highly sustainable. Designed granular materials have the added potential that the function of the granular material can be calibrated through the definition of the particles' form. Research on the design of granular materials in architecture is nascent. In physics they have been explored mainly with respect to different particle shapes. However, no coherent parametric particle design model of designed particle shapes for granular material systems in architecture has yet been established which considers both fabrication constraints and simulation requirements. The parametric particle design model proposed in this article has been based on a design system which has been developed through feasibility tests and simulations conducted in research and teaching. Based on this design system the parametric particle design model is developed integrating both fabrication constraints for architecture-scale particle systems and the geometric requirements of established simulation methods for granular materials. Initially the design system and related feasibility tests are presented. The parametric particle design model resulting from that is then described in detail. Directions of further research are discussed especially with respect to the integration of the parametric particle design model in 'inverse' design methods.

Realization of active metamaterials with odd micropolar elasticity

Materials made from active, living, or robotic components can display emergent properties arising from local sensing and computation. Here, we realize a freestanding active metabeam with piezoelectric elements and electronic feed-forward control that gives rise to an odd micropolar elasticity absent in energy-conserving media. The non-reciprocal odd modulus enables bending and shearing cycles that convert electrical energy into mechanical work, and vice versa. The sign of this elastic modulus is linked to a non-Hermitian topological index that determines the localization of vibrational modes to sample boundaries. At finite frequency, we can also tune the phase angle of the active modulus to produce a direction-dependent bending modulus and control non-Hermitian vibrational properties. Our continuum approach, built on symmetries and conservation laws, could be exploited to design others systems such as synthetic biofilaments and membranes with feed-forward control loops.

Physics of surface vibrational resonances: pillared phononic crystals, metamaterials, and metasurfaces

The introduction of engineered resonance phenomena on surfaces has opened a new frontier in surface science and technology. Pillared phononic crystals, metamaterials, and metasurfaces are an emerging class of artificial structured media, featuring surfaces that consist of pillars-or branching substructures-standing on a plate or a substrate. A pillared phononic crystal exhibits Bragg band gaps, while a pillared metamaterial may feature both Bragg band gaps and local resonance hybridization band gaps. These two band-gap phenomena, along with other unique wave dispersion characteristics, have been exploited for a variety of applications spanning a range of length scales and covering multiple disciplines in applied physics and engineering, particularly in elastodynamics and acoustics. The intrinsic placement of pillars on a semi-infinite surface-yielding a metasurface-has similarly provided new avenues for the control and manipulation of wave propagation. Classical waves are admitted in pillared media, including Lamb waves in plates and Rayleigh and Love waves along the surfaces of substrates, ranging in frequency from hertz to several gigahertz. With the presence of the pillars, these waves couple with surface resonances richly creating new phenomena and properties in the subwavelength regime and in some applications at higher frequencies as well. At the nanoscale, it was shown that atomic-scale resonances-stemming from nanopillars-alter the fundamental nature of conductive thermal transport by reducing the group velocities and generating mode localizations across the entire spectrum of the constituent material well into the terahertz regime. In this article, we first overview the history and development of pillared materials, then provide a detailed synopsis of a selection of key research topics that involve the utilization of pillars or similar branching substructures in different contexts. Finally, we conclude by providing a short summary and some perspectives on the state of the field and its promise for further future development.

Tunable characteristics of low-frequency bandgaps in two-dimensional multivibrator phononic crystal plates under prestrain

In view of the influence of variability of low-frequency noise frequency on noise prevention in real life, we present a novel two-dimensional tunable phononic crystal plate which is consisted of lead columns deposited in a silicone rubber plate with periodic holes and calculate its bandgap characteristics by finite element method. The low-frequency bandgap mechanism of the designed model is discussed simultaneously. Accordingly, the influence of geometric parameters of the phononic crystal plate on the bandgap characteristics is analyzed and the bandgap adjustability under prestretch strain is further studied. Results show that the new designed phononic crystal plate has lower bandgap starting frequency and wider bandwidth than the traditional single-sided structure, which is due to the coupling between the resonance mode of the scatterer and the long traveling wave in the matrix with the introduction of periodic holes. Applying prestretch strain to the matrix can realize active realtime control of low-frequency bandgap under slight deformation and broaden the low-frequency bandgap, which can be explained as the multiple bands tend to be flattened due to the localization degree of unit cell vibration increases with the rise of prestrain. The presented structure improves the realtime adjustability of sound isolation and vibration reduction frequency for phononic crystal in complex acoustic vibration environments.

Tunable photo-responsive elastic metamaterials

The metamaterial paradigm has allowed an unprecedented space-time control of various physical fields, including elastic and acoustic waves. Despite the wide variety of metamaterial configurations proposed so far, most of the existing solutions display a frequency response that cannot be tuned, once the structures are fabricated. Few exceptions include systems controlled by electric or magnetic fields, temperature, radio waves and mechanical stimuli, which may often be unpractical for real-world implementations. To overcome this limitation, we introduce here a polymeric 3D-printed elastic metamaterial whose transmission spectrum can be deterministically tuned by a light field. We demonstrate the reversible doubling of the width of an existing frequency band gap upon selective laser illumination. This feature is exploited to provide an elastic-switch functionality with a one-minute lag time, over one hundred cycles. In perspective, light-responsive components can bring substantial improvements to active devices for elastic wave control, such as beam-splitters, switches and filters.

Tacticity in chiral phononic crystals

The study of vibrational properties in engineered periodic structures relies on the early intuitions of Haüy and Boscovich, who regarded crystals as ensembles of periodically arranged point masses interacting via attractive and repulsive forces. Contrary to electromagnetism, where mechanical properties do not couple to the wave propagation mechanism, in elasticity this paradigm inevitably leads to low stiffness and high-density materials. Recent works transcend the Haüy-Boscovich perception, proposing shaped atoms with finite size, which relaxes the link between their mass and inertia, to achieve unusual dynamic behavior at lower frequencies, leaving the stiffness unaltered. Here, we introduce the concept of tacticity in spin-spin-coupled chiral phononic crystals. This additional layer of architecture has a remarkable effect on their dispersive behavior and allows to successfully realize material variants with equal mass density and stiffness but radically different dynamic properties.

Here, the authors study the influence of tacticity on the dynamic behaviour of chiral structured periodic media comprising rotational inertia elements. This opens the way towards new mechanisms for wave control by exploiting spin-spin coupling mechanism.

Tunable Acoustic Metasurface with High-Q Spectrum Splitting

We propose a tunable acoustic metasurface using a nested structure as the microunit, which is constituted by two distinct resonators. Thanks to the coupling resonance for the microunit and by simply adjusting the rotation angle of the inner split cavity, this nested structure provides nearly 2π phase shift. The full-wave simulations demonstrate that the constructed metasurface can be tuned to reflect incident sound waves to different directions in the operation frequency region with a very narrow bandwidth, which is a key functionality for many applications such as filtering and imaging. Meanwhile, the reflected sound waves out of the operation frequency region always remain unchanged. As a result, a high Q-factor spectrum splitting can be realised. The presented metasurface is of importance to develop many metamaterial-based devices, such as tunable acoustic cloaks and acoustic switching devices.

Low-frequency band gap of locally resonant phononic crystals with a dual-base plate

To achieve a wider band gap and a lower cut-on frequency, a locally resonant phononic crystal (LRPC) with a dual-base plate is investigated in this paper. Compared with the LRPC with a single plate, the band structure of the LRPC with a dual-base plate is calculated using the method of plane wave expansion and verified by the finite element method. According to the analysis of the band curves of the LRPC with a dual-base plate, the mechanisms are explained. Next, the influences of the thickness of the plates, the stiffness of the springs, the mass of resonators, and the lattice constant are also investigated. The results show that the structural asymmetry between the upper and the lower plate is conducive to reducing the cut-on frequency and broadening the band gap effectively. The results indicate a different approach for the application of LRPC in vibration and noise control.

Reprogrammable Phononic Metasurfaces

Phononic metamaterials rely on the presence of resonances in a structured medium to control the propagation of elastic waves. Their response depends on the geometry of their fundamental building blocks. A major challenge in metamaterials design is the realization of basic building blocks that can be tuned dynamically. Here, a metamaterial plate is realized that can be dynamically tuned by harnessing geometric and magnetic nonlinearities in the individual unit cells. The proposed tuning mechanism allows a stiffness variability of the individual unit cells and can control the amplitude of transmitted excitation through the plate over three orders of magnitude. The concepts can be extended to metamaterials at different scales, and they can be applied in a broad range of engineering applications, from seismic shielding at low frequency to ultrasonic cloaking at higher frequency ranges.

Magnetic-control multifunctional acoustic metasurface for reflected wave manipulation at deep subwavelength scale

Acoustic metasurfaces, exhibiting superior performance with subwavelength thickness, are ideal alternatives for functionalities such as wavefront modulation and acoustic energy trapping, etc. However, most of the reported acoustic metasurfaces were passive. Here a magnetically tuned mechanism is reported for membrane-type acoustic metamaterials. Harnessing the geometric nonlinearity of membrane structures, the transmission spectrum is both theoretically and experimentally tuned over broadband by an external static magnetic force. Simultaneously, the phase profiles can be readily tailored by the magnetic stimulus. Further, a magnetic-control multifunctional metasurface is proposed for low-frequency wave manipulation. By switching the magnetic force distribution, multi extraordinary phenomena, such as acoustic wave redirecting, focusing, bending, etc., are realized without changing the physical structure. Besides, it is demonstrated the proposed metasurface, at deep subwavelength scale (~1/85λ), supports anomalous reflected wave manipulation over a wide band. These results open up new degrees of freedom to steer acoustic wave and pave a way for designing active acoustic devices.

Tunable Digital Metamaterial for Broadband Vibration Isolation at Low Frequency

A 3D-printed digital metamaterial embedded with electromagnets is fabricated. Switching electromagnets between the attaching (1 bit) and detaching (0 bit) modes activates different waveguides in the metamaterial. The underlying mechanism is investigated theoretically and experimentally. The hierarchical assemblies of unit cells, mimicking digital bits, allow programmable broadening of the bandgap of the metamaterial.

Enhanced flexural wave sensing by adaptive gradient-index metamaterials

Increasing sensitivity and signal to noise ratios of conventional wave sensors is an interesting topic in structural health monitoring, medical imaging, aerospace and nuclear instrumentation. Here, we report the concept of a gradient piezoelectric self-sensing system by integrating shunting circuitry into conventional sensors. By tuning circuit elements properly, both the quality and quantity of the flexural wave measurement data can be significantly increased for new adaptive sensing applications. Through analytical, numerical and experimental studies, we demonstrate that a metamaterial-based sensing system (MBSS) with gradient bending stiffness can be designed by connecting gradient negative capacitance circuits to an array of piezoelectric patches (sensors). Furthermore, we demonstrate that the proposed system can achieve more than two orders of magnitude amplification of flexural wave signals to overcome the detection limit. This research encompasses fundamental advancements in the MBSS with improved performance and functionalities, and will yield significant advances for a range of applications.

Smart three-dimensional lightweight structure triggered from a thin composite sheet via 3D printing technique

Complex fabrication process and expensive materials have restricted the development of smart three-dimensional (3D) lightweight structures, which are expected to possess self-shaping, self-folding and self-unfolding performances. Here we present a simple approach to fabricate smart lightweight structures by triggering shape transformation from thin printed composite sheets. The release of the internal strain in printed polymer materials enables the printed composite sheet to keep flat under heating and transform into a designed 3D configuration when cooled down to room temperature. The 3D lightweight structure can be switched between flat and 3D configuration under appropriate thermal stimuli. Our work exploits uniform internal strain in printed materials as a controllable tool to fabricate smart 3D lightweight structures, opening an avenue for possible applications in engineering fields.

Harnessing Deformation to Switch On and Off the Propagation of Sound

A new class of architected materials is designed to control the propagation of sound. The proposed system comprises an array of elastomeric helices in background air and is characterized by frequency ranges of strong wave attenuation (bandgaps) in the undeformed configuration. Upon axially stretching the helices, such bandgaps are suppressed, enabling the design of a new class of acoustic switch.

Information processing via physical soft body

Soft machines have recently gained prominence due to their inherent softness and the resulting safety and resilience in applications. However, these machines also have disadvantages, as they respond with complex body dynamics when stimulated. These dynamics exhibit a variety of properties, including nonlinearity, memory, and potentially infinitely many degrees of freedom, which are often difficult to control. Here, we demonstrate that these seemingly undesirable properties can in fact be assets that can be exploited for real-time computation. Using body dynamics generated from a soft silicone arm, we show that they can be employed to emulate desired nonlinear dynamical systems. First, by using benchmark tasks, we demonstrate that the nonlinearity and memory within the body dynamics can increase the computational performance. Second, we characterize our system’s computational capability by comparing its task performance with a standard machine learning technique and identify its range of validity and limitation. Our results suggest that soft bodies are not only impressive in their deformability and flexibility but can also be potentially used as computational resources on top and for free.