Cubic metamaterial crystal supporting broadband isotropic chiral phonons
Chiral metamaterials can support chiral phonons leading to acoustical activity, the acoustical counterpart of optical activity. However, the properties of early metamaterial designs have been very highly anisotropic, and chiral acoustical phonons occurred only for selected high-symmetry directions. The authors propose a novel chiral metamaterial based on ``twisting'' a truncated octahedron in a simple-cubic unit cell. Not supported by crystal symmetry alone but rather by a tuned degeneracy, chiral phonons and large broadband acoustical activity are obtained for all phonon propagation directions in 3D. This result is notable because even isotropic achiral acoustical phonons are rare for crys…
Isotropic Chiral Acoustic Phonons in 3D Quasicrystalline Metamaterials.
International audience; The elastic properties of three-dimensional (3D) crystalline mechanical metamaterials, unlike those of amorphous structures, are generally strongly anisotropic—even in the long-wavelength limit and for highly symmetric crystals. Aiming at isotropic linear elastic wave propagation, we therefore study 3D periodic approximants of 3D icosahedral quasicrystalline mechanical metamaterials consisting of uniaxial chiral metarods. Considering the increasing order of the approximants, we approach nearly isotropic effective speeds of sound and isotropic acoustical activity. The latter is directly connected to circularly polarized 3D metamaterial chiral acoustic phonons—for all …
Topologically Protected Twist Edge States for a Resonant Mechanical Laser-Beam Scanner
We design a one-dimensional chain of two different alternating three-dimensional elastic chiral unit cells. The chain’s topological band gap, a result of the alternation of unit cells combined with their chirality and an effective mirror symmetry, guarantees a protected edge state, corresponding to a localized twist mode with an eigenfrequency inside the one-dimensional band gap. A small axial modulation at the one end of the beam can excite this resonant twist mode at the other end of the beam, via evanescent modes in the gap. The topological robustness of the edge state allows us to add a micromirror to the other end of the beam, turning the arrangement into a resonant mechanical laser-be…
On the Schwarzschild Effect in 3D Two‐Photon Laser Lithography
International audience; The two‐photon Schwarzschild effect in photoresists suitable for 3D laser lithography is revisited. The study ranges over seven orders of magnitude in exposure time (from 1 µs to 10 s) and investigates a wide variety of different photoresist compositions. For short exposure times (“regime I”), the laser power at the polymerization threshold can scale with the inverse square root of the exposure time, as naively to be expected for two‐photon absorption. Substantial deviations occur, however, for low photoinitiator concentrations. For intermediate exposure times (“regime II”), a Schwarzschild‐type of behavior is found, as discussed previously. For very long exposure ti…
Mapping acoustical activity in 3D chiral mechanical metamaterials onto micropolar continuum elasticity
Abstract We compare the phonon band structures and chiral phonon eigenmodes of a recently experimentally realized three-dimensional (3D) cubic chiral metamaterial architecture to results from linear micropolar elasticity, an established generalization of classical linear Cauchy elasticity. We achieve very good qualitative agreement concerning the anisotropies of the eigenfrequencies, the anisotropies of the eigenmode properties of the acoustic branches, as well as with respect to the observed pronounced sample-size dependence of acoustical activity and of the static push-to-twist conversion effects. The size dependence of certain properties, that is, the loss of scale invariance, is a finge…
Poroelastic metamaterials with negative effective static compressibility
We suggest a three-dimensional metamaterial structure exhibiting an isotropic expansion in response to an increased hydrostatic pressure imposed by a surrounding gas or liquid. We show that this behavior corresponds to a negative absolute (rather than only differential) effective compressibility under truly static and stable conditions. The poroelastic metamaterial is composed of only a single ordinary constituent solid. By detailed numerical parameter studies, we find that a pressure increase of merely one bar can lead to a relative increase in the effective volume exceeding one percent for geometrical structure parameters that should be accessible to fabrication by 3D printing.
Static chiral Willis continuum mechanics for three-dimensional chiral mechanical metamaterials
International audience; Recent static experiments on twist effects in chiral three-dimensional mechanical metamaterials have been discussed in the context of micropolar Eringen continuum mechanics, which is a generalization of linear Cauchy elasticity. For cubic symmetry, Eringen elasticity comprises nine additional parameters with respect to linear Cauchy elasticity, of which three directly influence chiral effects. Here, we discuss the behavior of the static case of an alternative generalization of linear Cauchy elasticity, the Willis equations. We show that in the homogeneous static cubic case, only one additional parameter with respect to linear Cauchy elasticity results, which directly…
Experiments on the Parallel Hall Effect in Three-Dimensional Metamaterials
The usual Hall effect in a semiconductor leads to a voltage perpendicular to an applied static magnetic field. The authors significantly extend their recent work and demonstrate $e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}x\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}p\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}r\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}m\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}n\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}t\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}a\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}l\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}l\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}y$ that not only the sign but also the direction of the Hall field can be tailored by a metamaterial's microstructure. They show that, with judicious engineering, the Hall voltage can be $p\phantom{\rule{0}{0…
3D Metamaterials with Negative Thermal Expansion and Negative Effective Compressibility
Materials with negative thermal expansion are desired for controlling thermal stresses, but unusual in nature. With two-component metamaterials it is possible to tune the thermal expansion from positive over zero to negative values, even if both components have positive thermal expansion. Using gray-tone laser lithography we fabricate three-dimensional two-component polymer microlattices, exhibiting zero or negative thermal expansion [1].
Three-dimensional poroelastic metamaterials with extremely negative or positive effective static volume compressibility
Abstract Recently, three-dimensional poroelastic metamaterials have been introduced that show an unusual isotropic increase of their effective volume when increasing the hydrostatic pressure of the surrounding air. This behavior corresponds to a negative effective static volume compressibility. Here, we present significantly simplified metamaterial architectures, which are composed of just one rather than eight hollow sealed functional elements within each cubic unit cell. On cubic symmetry microstructured polymer samples made by 3D laser printing, we measure a negative effective compressibility of about κ eff = − 4 . 7 % ∕ bar under pressure control. This value is six times larger than pre…
Elastodynamic behavior of mechanical cloaks designed by direct lattice transformations
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When size matters
That the unit cell of a metamaterial can't be considered vanishingly small like in ordinary crystals has long been deemed more burden than opportunity. The emergence of a characteristic length scale in metamaterial chains may change that trend.
New Twists of 3D Chiral Metamaterials
Rationally designed artificial materials, called metamaterials, allow for tailoring effective material properties beyond ("meta") the properties of their bulk ingredient materials. This statement is especially true for chiral metamaterials, as unlocking certain degrees of freedom necessarily requires broken centrosymmetry. While the field of chiral electromagnetic/optical metamaterials has become rather mature, the field of elastic/mechanical metamaterials is just emerging and wide open. This research news reviews recent theoretical and experimental progress concerning 3D chiral mechanical and optical metamaterials, with special emphasis on work performed at KIT.