High Ultrasonic Transmission Loss Metasurfaces in Water

We report the experimental demonstration of a class of ultrasonic metasurfaces made of patterned silicon thin wafers partially covered by Si3N4 film that exhibit over 24 dB of sound transmission loss around 0.7 MHz, which is caused by the cancelation of sound waves emitted by the resonant Si3N4 membrane and the ones through the silicon backbone in each unit cell. These metasurfaces are expected to have high reflection with little total loss even at ultrasonic frequency. They could be good candidates as the building blocks for low-loss cavities, phase zone plates, and other underwater acoustic metamaterials. As the working principle is scalable, it provides guidance for the designs of audible underwater sound barriers as well.