arXiv subjects

Zhengyou Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Zhengyou Liu.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Topological negative refraction of surface acoustic waves in a Weyl phononic crystal

Reflection and refraction occur at interface between two different media. These two fundamental phenomena form the basis of fabricating various wave components. Specifically, refraction, dubbed positive refraction nowadays, appears in the opposite side of the interface normal with respect to the incidence. Negative refraction, emerging in the same side by contrast, has been observed in artificial materials1-5 following a prediction by Veslago6, which has stimulated many fascinating applications such as super-resolution imaging7. Here we report the first discovery of negative refraction of the topological surface arc states of Weyl crystals, realized for airborne sound in a novel woodpile phononic crystal. The interfaces are one-dimensional edges that separate different crystal facets. By tailoring the surface terminations of such a Weyl phononic crystal, open equifrequency contours of surface acoustic waves can be delicately designed to produce the negative refraction, to contrast the positive counterpart realized in the same sample. Strikingly different from the conventional interfacial phenomena, the unwanted reflection can be made forbidden by exploiting the open nature of the surface equifrequency contours, which is a topologically protected surface hallmark of Weyl crystals8-12.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Valley-projected edge modes observed in underwater sonic crystals

Recently, the topological physics in acoustics has been attracting much attention. However, all the studies are aimed to elastic or airborne sound systems. Realizing topological insulators for underwater sound is of great importance, since water is another crucial sound medium in addition to solid and air. Here we report an experimental study on the valley-projected edge states for underwater sound. The edge states are directly observed in our ultrasound scanning experiments, together with a solid evidence for the valley-selective excitation. The experimental data agree well with our numerical results. Prospective applications can be anticipated, such as for underwater sound signal processing and ocean noise control.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Observation of acoustic Landau quantization and quantum-Hall-like edge states

Many intriguing phenomena occur for electrons under strong magnetic fields. Recently, it was proposed that an appropriate strain texture in graphene can induce a synthetic gauge field, in which the electrons behave like in a real magnetic field. This opened the door to control quantum transport by mechanical means and to explore unprecedented physics in high-field regime. Such studies have been achieved in molecular and photonic lattices. Here we report the first experimental realization of giant uniform pseudomagnetic field in acoustics by introducing a simple uniaxial deformation to acoustic graphene. Benefited from the controllability of our macroscopic platform, we observe the acoustic Landau levels in frequency-resolved spectroscopy and their spatial localization in pressure-field distributions. We further visualize the quantum-Hall-like edge states (connected to the zeroth Landau level), which have been elusive before owing to the challenge in creating large-area uniform pseudomagnetic fields. These results, highly consistent with our full-wave simulations, establish a complete framework for artificial structures under constant pseudomagnetic fields. Our findings, conceptually novel in acoustics, may offer new opportunities to manipulate sound.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Polarization-dependent property of dipole-dipole interaction mediated by localized surface plasmon of an Ag nanosphere

The effect of the dipole polarization on the quantum dipole dipole interaction near an Ag nanosphere (ANS) is investigated. A theoretical formalism in terms of classical Green function is developed for the transfer rate and the potential energy of the dipole dipole interaction (DDI) between two polarized dipoles. It is found that a linear transition dipole can couple to a left circularly polarized transition dipole much stronger than to a right circularly polarized transition dipole. This polarization selectivity exists over a wide frequency range and is robust against the variation of the dipoles' position or the radius of the ANS. In contrast, a right circularly polarized transition dipole, can change sharply from coupling strongly to another right circularly polarized dipole to coupling strongly to a left circularly polarized dipole with varying frequency. However, if the two dipoles are placed in the same radial direction of the sphere, the right circularly polarized transition dipole can only couple to the dipole with the same polarization while not to the left circularly polarized transition dipole. These findings may be used in solid-state quantum-information processing based on the DDI.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

Valley Topological Phases in Bilayer Sonic Crystals

Recently, the topological physics in artificial crystals for classical waves has become an emerging research area. In this Letter, we propose a unique bilayer design of sonic crystals that are constructed by two layers of coupled hexagonal array of triangular scatterers. Assisted by the additional layer degree of freedom, a rich topological phase diagram is achieved by simply rotating scatterers in both layers. Under a unified theoretical framework, two kinds of valley-projected topological acoustic insulators are distinguished analytically, i.e., the layer-mixed and layer-polarized topological valley Hall phases, respectively. The theory is evidently confirmed by our numerical and experimental observations of the nontrivial edge states that propagate along the interfaces separating different topological phases. Various applications such as sound communications in integrated devices, can be anticipated by the intriguing acoustic edge states enriched by the layer information.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Acoustic Dirac degeneracy and topological phase transitions realized by rotating scatterers

The artificial crystals for classical waves provide a good platform to explore the topological physics proposed originally in condensed matter systems. In this paper, acoustic Dirac degeneracy is realized by simply rotating the scatterers in sonic crystals, where the degeneracy is induced accidentally by modulating the scattering strength among the scatterers during the rotation process. This gives a flexible way to create topological phase transition in acoustic systems. Edge states are further observed along the interface separating two topologically distinct gapped sonic crystals.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Experimental observation of sound-mediated stable configurations for polystyrene particles

Here we present an experimental observation of the self-organization effect of the polystyrene particles formed by acoustically-induced interaction forces. Two types of stable configurations are observed experimentally: one is mechanically equilibrium and featured by nonzero inter-particle separations, and the other corresponds to a close-packed assembly, which is formed by strong attractions among the aggregated particles. For the former case involving two or three particles, the most probable inter-particle separations (counted for numerous independent initial arrangements) agree well with the theoretical predictions. For the latter case, the number of the final stable configurations grows with the particle number, and the occurrence probability of each configuration is interpreted by a simple geometric model.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Observation of topological valley transport of sound in sonic crystals

Valley pseudospin, labeling quantum states of energy extrema in momentum space, is attracting tremendous attention1-13 because of its potential in constructing new carrier of information. Compared with the non-topological bulk valley transport realized soon after predictions1-5, the topological valley transport in domain walls6-13 is extremely challenging owing to the inter-valley scattering inevitably induced by atomic scale imperfectness, until the recent electronic signature observed in bilayer graphene12,13. Here we report the first experimental observation of topological valley transport of sound in sonic crystals. The macroscopic nature of sonic crystals permits the flexible and accurate design of domain walls. In addition to a direct visualization of the valley-selective edge modes through spatial scanning of sound field, reflection immunity is observed in sharply curved interfaces. The topologically protected interface transport of sound, strikingly different from that in traditional sound waveguides14,15, may serve as the basis of designing devices with unconventional functions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Valley Vortex States in Sonic Crystals

Valleytronics is quickly emerging as an exciting field in fundamental and applied research. In this Letter, we study the acoustic version of valley states in sonic crystals and reveal a vortex nature of such states. Besides the selection rules established for exciting valley polarized states, a mimicked spin Hall effect of sound is proposed further. The extraordinary chirality of valley vortex states, detectable in experiments, may open new possibility in sound manipulations. This is appealing to scalar acoustics that lacks spin degree of freedom inherently. Besides, the valley selection enables a handy way to create vortex matter in acoustics, in which the vortex chirality can be controlled flexibly. Potential applications can be anticipated with the exotic interaction of acoustic vortices with matter, such as to trigger the rotation of the trapped microparticles without contact.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2016

Observation of Acoustic Valley Vortex States and Valley-Chirality Locked Beam Splitting

The Letter reports an experimental observation of the classical version of valley polarized states in a two-dimensional hexagonal sonic crystal, where the inversion-symmetry breaking of scatterers induces an omnidirectional frequency gap. The acoustic valley states, which carry specific linear momenta and orbital angular momenta, were selectively excited by external Gaussian beams and conveniently confirmed by the pressure distribution outside the crystal, according to the criterion of momentum conservation. The vortex nature of such intriguing crystal states was directly characterized by scanning the phase profile inside the crystal. In addition, we observed a peculiar beam splitting phenomenon, in which the separated beams are constructed by different valleys and locked to the opposite vortex chirality. The exceptional sound transport, encoded with valley-chirality locked information, may serve as the basis of designing conceptually novel acoustic devices with unconventional functions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Acoustically mediated long-range interaction among multiple spherical particles exposed to a plane standing wave

In this work, we study the acoustically mediated interaction forces among multiple well-separated spherical particles trapped in the same node or antinode plane of a standing wave. An analytical expression of the acoustic interaction force is derived, which is accurate even for the particles beyond the Rayleigh limit. Interestingly, the multi-particle system can be decomposed into a series of independent two-particle systems described by pairwise interactions. Each pairwise interaction is a long-range interaction, as characterized by a soft oscillatory attenuation (at the power exponent of n=-1 or -2). The vector additivity of the acoustic interaction force, which is not well expected considering the nonlinear nature of the acoustic radiation force, is greatly useful for exploring a system consisting of a large number of particles. The capability of self-organizing a big particle cluster can be anticipated through such acoustically controllable long-range interaction.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

Highly efficient isolation of waterborne sound by an air-sealed metasurface

Underwater sound isolation has been a long-standing fundamental issue in industry and military fields. Starting from a simple theoretical model, here an air-sealed metasurface is proposed to overcome this problem. Comparing with the sample without filling air, the effective impedance of the air-sealed one is greatly reduced and strikingly mismatch with water, accompanying another merit of low sound speed. Deeply suppressed sound transmission (~10-5) through such a metasurface is observed experimentally over a wide range of ultrasonic frequencies and incident angles.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2016

Making sound vortices by metasurfaces

Based on the Huygens-Fresnel principle, a metasurface structure is designed to generate a sound vortex beam in airborne environment. The metasurface is constructed by a thin planar plate perforated with a circular array of deep subwavelength resonators with desired phase and amplitude responses. The metasurface approach in making sound vortices is validated well by full-wave simulations and experimental measurements. Potential applications of such artificial spiral beams can be anticipated, as exemplified experimentally by the torque effect exerting on an absorbing disk.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2015

Elastic Waves Scattering without Conversion in Metamaterials with Simultaneous Zero Indices for Longitudinal and Transverse waves

We theoretically investigate elastic waves propagating in metamaterials with simultaneous zero indices for both the longitudinal and transverse waves. With scattering objects (here cylinders) present in the metamaterials slabs, while the elastic waves can mostly transmit through the metamaterials slabs perfectly, exhibiting the well-known cloaking effect of zero index metamaterials, they nevertheless become totally blocked at resonances, indicating strong elastic waves scattering by the objects in the cases. However, despite the occurrence of the elastic waves scattering, there is, counter-intuitively, no mode conversion between the longitudinal and transverse waves in the process, completely in contrast with that in conventional elastic media. A design of two-dimensional phononic crystal with these peculiar properties is presented.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Highly asymmetric interaction forces induced by acoustic waves in coupled plate structures

Mutual forces can be induced between coupled structures when illuminated by external acoustic waves. In this Letter, we propose a concept of asymmetric interaction between two coupled plate-like structures, which is generated by oppositely incident plane waves. Besides the striking contrast in magnitude, the mutual force induced by one of the incidences can be tuned extremely strong due to the resonant excitation of the flexural plate modes. The highly asymmetric interaction with enhanced strength in single side should be potentially useful, such as in designing ultrasound instruments and sensors.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2014

Large-Angle Bending Transport of Microparticles by Acoustic Half-Bessel Beams

Conventional microparticle transports by light or sound are realized along a straight line. Recently, this limit has been overcome in optics as the growing up of the self-accelerating Airy beams, which are featured by many peculiar properties, e.g., bending propagation, diffraction-free and self-healing. However, the bending angles of Airy beams are rather small since they are only paraxial solutions of the two-dimensional (2D) Helmholtz equation. Here we propose a novel micromanipulation by using acoustic Half-Bessel beams, which are strict solutions of the 2D Helmholtz equation. Compared with that achieved by Airy beams, the bending angle of the particle trajectory attained here is much steeper (exceeding 90o). The large-angle bending transport of microparticles, which is robust to complex scattering environment, enables a wide range of applications from the colloidal to biological sciences.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2014

Unidirectional propagation of designer surface acoustic waves

We propose an efficient design route to generate unidirectional propagation of the designer surface acoustic waves. The whole system consists of a periodically corrugated rigid plate combining with a pair of asymmetric narrow slits. The directionality of the structure-induced surface waves stems from the destructive interference between the evanescent waves emitted from the double slits. The theoretical prediction is validated well by simulations and experiments. Promising applications can be anticipated, such as in designing compact acoustic circuits.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2014

Focusing and directional beaming effects of airborne sound through a planar lens with zigzag slits

Based on the Huygens-Fresnel principle we design a planar lens to efficiently realize the interconversion of the point-like source and Gaussian beam in the air ambience. The lens is constructed by a planar plate drilled elaborately with a nonuniform array of zigzag slits, where the slit exits act as subwavelength-sized secondary sources carrying desired sound responses. The experiments operated at audible regime agree well with the theoretical predictions. This compact device could be useful in daily life applications, such as for medical and detection purposes.

physics.optics↗