A programmable metasurface based on acoustic black hole for real-time control of flexural waves

Abstract

The time-modulated active medium with linear independent frequency conversion method has been demonstrated to enable wave orientation and reconstruction. However, due to the symmetric scattering field, this technique requires intricate microcircuit designs. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes a tunable piezoelectric metasurface based on acoustic black holes (ABHs) to redirect flexural wave reflections. The system can convert an incident flexural wave into a reflected wave of any direction and frequency. This is accomplished through the linear time modulation of the sensing signal, which breaks the constraints of Snell’s law inherent in traditional designs and is insensitive to the incident amplitude. The coupling of the ABH damping system with a linear independent frequency conversion mechanism allows for the conversion of an incident flexural wave into a reflected wave in any direction and frequency while also eliminating the influence of second harmonic reflection on the wave field and simplifying the time modulation circuit. In addition, this paper demonstrates arbitrary angle reflection, focusing, beam splitting, and frequency conversion of the incident wave. By improving the flexibility of elastic wave manipulation, this paper introduces a new approach for active control of elastic waves and provides a design method that can be employed in a variety of applications ranging from vibration protection of engineering structures to vibration sensing and evaluation.