Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Acoustic metamaterials

Nearly perfect sound absorbers

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 848–849 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Membrane-based acoustic resonators of subwavelength dimensions achieve nearly perfect acoustic absorption.

Complete sound attenuation by dissipation usually requires thick absorbing materials, with dimensions comparable to the wavelength of low-frequency airborne sound (typically 1–10 m). However, it should be possible to build sound absorbers (or acoustic sinks) that are much smaller than the acoustic wavelength. Such a compact device would be of great interest not only for sound insulation, but could also guide the design of devices that absorb and convert acoustic energy to more useful forms of energy such as electric current. Moreover, a perfect acoustic absorber may also be an elegant solution to overcome the diffraction limit of acoustic waves. This is in fact what Sheng and colleagues report in Nature Materials: a nearly perfect acoustic absorber of deep-subwavelength dimensions1.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: A nearly perfect acoustic absorber1.

References

  1. Ma, G., Yang, M., Xiao, S., Yang, Z. & Sheng, P. Nature Mater. 13, 873–878 (2014).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  2. de Rosny, J. & Fink, M. Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 124301 (2002).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Wan, W., Chong, Y., Ge, L., Noh, H., Stone, A. D. & Cao, H. Science 331, 889–892 (2011).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Yang, Z., Mei, J., Yang, M., Chan, N. H. & Sheng, P. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 204301 (2008).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mathias Fink is at the Institut Langevin at the Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie de la Ville de Paris, Paris 75005, France,

    Mathias Fink

Authors
  1. Mathias Fink
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mathias Fink.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Fink, M. Nearly perfect sound absorbers. Nature Mater 13, 848–849 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4067

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4067

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing