Electro-magnetically controlled acoustic metamaterials with adaptive properties

A design of actively controlled metamaterial is proposed and discussed. The metamaterial consists of layers of electrically charged nano or micro particles exposed to external magnetic field. The particles are also attached to compliant layers in a way that the designed structure exhibits two resonances: mechanical spring-mass resonance and electro-magnetic cyclotron resonance. It is shown that if the cyclotron frequency is greater than the mechanical resonance frequency, the designed structure could be highly attenuative (40–60 dB) for vibration and sound waves in very broad frequency range even for wavelength much greater than the thickness of the metamaterial. The approach opens up wide range of opportunities for design of adaptively controlled acoustic metamaterials by controlling magnetic field and/or electrical charges.