Experimental realization of a pillared metasurface for flexural wave focusing

A metasurface is an array of subwavelength units with modulated wave responses that show great potential for the control of refractive/reflective properties in compact functional devices. In this work, we propose an elastic metasurface consisting of a line of pillars with gradient heights, erected on a homogeneous plate. The change in the resonant frequencies associated with the height gradient allows us to achieve transmitted phase response covering a range of 2 pi, while the amplitude response remains at a relatively high level. We employ the pillared units to design a focusing metasurface and compare the properties of the focal spots through simulation and experiment. The subwavelength transverse and lateral full width at half maximum of the focusing intensity profiles are observed in both simulation and experiment, with the underlying mechanism being the interference and diffraction of the scattered waves from the resonant pillars as well as the boundaries (especially for experiment). The good correspondence between the experimental and simulated relative focal lengths shows the robustness of the focusing pillared metasurfaces with respect to fabrication imperfections. This proposed compact, simple, and robust metasurface with unaffected mechanical properties provides a new platform for elastic wave manipulation for energy harvesting, wave communication, sensing, and non-destructive testing among others.

Automated summary

This study introduces a novel elastic metasurface composed of pillar units with gradient heights for controlling refractive/reflective properties. The design achieves strong focusing effects in simulation and experiment, demonstrating robustness and compactness in wave manipulation.