Visco-thermal effects in acoustic metamaterials: from total transmission to total reflection and high absorption

Abstract

We theoretically and experimentally investigate visco–thermal effects on the acoustic propagation through metamaterials consisting of rigid slabs with subwavelength slits embedded in air. We demonstrate that this unavoidable loss mechanism is not merely a refinement, but that it plays a dominant role in the actual acoustic response of the structure. Specifically, in the case of very narrow slits, the visco–thermal losses avoid completely the excitation of Fabry–Perot resonances, leading to 100% reflection. This is exactly opposite to the perfect transmission predicted in the idealised lossless case. Moreover, for a wide range of geometrical parameters, there exists an optimum slit width at which the energy dissipated in the structure can be as high as 50%. This work provides a clear evidence that visco–thermal effects are necessary to describe realistically the acoustic response of locally resonant metamaterials.

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