One-way Acoustic Beam Splitter

Abstract

As a key component of various acoustic systems, acoustic beam splitter (BS) finds important application in many scenarios, yet are conventionally based on the assumption that the acoustic waves propagate as easily when incident from either input or output side. It would therefore be intriguing, from the viewpoints of both science and technology, to break through this limit by realizing acoustic BSs supporting asymmetric transmission. Here we propose the concept of one-way acoustic BS capable of splitting acoustic beam incident from the input port into multiple beams while effectively reducing the backward transmission from any of the output ports. Furthermore, our design enables flexibly adjusting the number and angle of output beams by blocking the unused line defects. The numerical results verify the theoretical predictions and demonstrate the phenomenon of one-way acoustic BS at the predesigned frequency. Our design with functionality and flexibility bridges the gap between acoustic diodes and BSs and may enable novel multi-functional devices with great application prospects in diverse fields such as acoustic integrated circuits and acoustic communication.

Infectious Hospital Area, the First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

“…As presented in the introduction section, the frequency range of the acoustic beam splitter in Graciá -Salgado's research is from 10.1 kHz to 10.4 kHz for the unit cell periodicity a = 0.005 m [5], the frequency of acoustic beam splitter in Yan's research is 5.2 kHz [6], and the frequency of acoustic beam splitter in Tang's research is 13.2 kHz for the unit cell periodicity a = 0.1 m [7]. In this study, the frequency range of the proposed acoustic beam splitter is from 11 kHz to 17 kHz, which is much wider than the frequency range in the previous studies.…”

“…Tang et al [7] proposed an one-way acoustic beam splitter which can divide the input acoustic beam into multiple beams and effectively attenuating the backward reflection. However, the existing acoustic beam splitter designs based on acoustic metamaterial can only work in the very narrow frequency range or at a specific frequency.…”

Thermally Tunable Acoustic Beam Splitter Based on Poly(vinyl alcohol) Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Hydrogel

“…Acoustic beam splitters were usually realized by 2D phononic crystal structure-based devices [ 17 ]. The specific waveguide arrangement in the array of scatters can separate acoustic waves into multiple channels [ 18 ]. The transmission through phononic crystal waveguides is relatively low due to reflection and transmission losses due to scattering.…”

Generation of three-port splitter by double-layer grating in second-order Littrow configuration

“…For example, fused-silica grating [10,11] has good thermal stability and high damage threshold. And the polarizing beam splitter [12][13][14][15][16] etched in fused silica has good diffraction efficiency and high utilization. Moreover, it has important applications in the fields of lithography, laser pulses, spectroscopic, and interferometers.…”