Sound Waves Go Flat

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Osama Bilal, director of the Wave Engineering Laboratory for Extreme and Intelligent Matter (on right), and Doctoral Student Mahmoud Samak are co-authors of a new paper documenting research into innovative soundwave technologies. (Christopher LaRosa / UConn College of Engineering Photo)

A team of UConn College of Engineering (CoE) researchers have achieved a major milestone in the field of Phononics with the first experimental demonstration of an all-flat phononic band structure (AFB). Phononics concerns the study of sound and heat control. A breakthrough, detailed in an article just published in Physical Review Letters, introduces a new class of materials capable of uniquely controlling sound and vibrations by trapping energy with unprecedented intensity, offering exciting possibilities for potential applications in acoustics, vibration insulation, energy harvesting, and beyond.

The work, led by Professor Osama Bilal, director of the Wave Engineering Laboratory for Extreme and Intelligent Matter (We-Xite), unlocks a new recipe for engineering materials with exotic behavior. In the experiments, the material serves a double function, Bilal explains, by being a perfect sound vacuum and wave amplifier at the same time.

Read more in the UConn Today article.