Metasurfaces exhibiting spatially asymmetric inner structures have been shown to host unidirectional scattering effects, benefiting areas where directional control of waves is desired. In this work, we propose a non-Hermitian planar elastic metasurface to achieve unidirectional focusing of flexural waves. The unit cells are constructed by piezoelectric disks and metallic blocks that are asymmetrically loaded. A tunable material loss is then introduced by negative capacitance shunting. By suitably engineering the induced loss profile, a series of unit cells are designed, which can individually access the exceptional points manifested by unidirectional zero reflection. We then construct a planar metasurface by tuning the reflected phase to ensure constructive interference at one side of the metasurface. Unidirectional focusing of the incident waves is demonstrated, where the reflected wave energy is focused from one direction, and zero reflection is observed in the other direction. The proposed metasurface enriches the flexibility in asymmetric elastic wave manipulation as the loss and the reflected phase can be tailored independently in each unit cell. 
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                            Elastic Metasurfaces for Full Wavefront Control and Low-Frequency Energy Harvesting
                        
                    
    
            Abstract Controlling and manipulating elastic/acoustic waves via artificially structured metamaterials, phononic crystals, and metasurfaces have gained an increasing research interest in the last decades. Unlike others, a metasurface is a single layer in the host medium with an array of subwavelength-scaled patterns introducing an abrupt phase shift in the wave propagation path. In this study, an elastic metasurface composed of an array of slender beam resonators is proposed to control the elastic wavefront of low-frequency flexural waves. The phase gradient based on Snell’s law is achieved by tailoring the thickness of thin beam resonators connecting two elastic host media. Through analytical and numerical models, the phase-modulated metasurfaces are designed and verified to accomplish three dynamic wave functions, namely, deflection, non-paraxial propagation, and focusing. An oblique incident wave is also demonstrated to show the versatility of the proposed design for focusing of wave energy incident from multiple directions. Experimentally measured focusing metasurface has nearly three times wave amplification at the designed focal point which validates the design and theoretical models. Furthermore, the focusing metasurface is exploited for low-frequency energy harvesting and the piezoelectric harvester is improved by almost nine times in terms of the harvested power output as compared to the baseline harvester on the pure plate without metasurface. 
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                            - Award ID(s):
- 1933436
- PAR ID:
- 10293120
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Vibration and Acoustics
- Volume:
- 143
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 1048-9002
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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