Tapered labyrinthine acoustic metamaterials for broadband impedance matching

present five kinds of labyrinthine or space-coiling acoustic metamaterials with tapered channels and apertures. These designs exhibit negative index behavior with modest dispersion, and also have substantially improved impedance matching compared to previously investigated labyrinthine cells. Experimentally measured effective material parameters are in good agreement with numerically computed results for the first two designs. Numerical results are presented for the other three unit cells. By virtue of their design tunability and small size, these tapered labyrinthine acoustic metamaterials show potential as building blocks for a wide range of acoustic wave manipulation and imaging applications. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.