Meta-fences: blocking waves utilizing a layer of identical tiny scatters

Abstract: Wave steering by artificial materials (for example, phononic crystals and acoustic metamaterials) is a fascinating frontier in modern physics and engineering, but suffers from bulky sizes and intractable challenges in fabrication. Here, a sparse layer of identical tiny scatters, which we call meta-fences, is presented with a non-destructive way to omnidirectionally block flexural waves in plates. The underlying mechanism is that the restraining force and moment of the scatter are tuned simultaneously to counter-balance the incident wave. Both our experimental results and numerical analysis have demonstrated that broadband wave sources ranging from 3 to 7 kHz can be segregated from the protected area by the meta-fence. In addition, the meta-fence is further assembled into a waveguide routing with an arbitrary configuration. Compared with previous isolators and waveguides, our meta-fences exhibit absolute advantages in compact size, flexible configuration, and high structural strength. The current scenario sheds light on the design of lightweight-and-strong architectures for vibration control and energy harvesting with a high efficiency, and can be extended to microfluidics, acoustics, seismology and other fields.