High-efficiency unidirectional wavefront manipulation for broadband airborne sound with a planar device

In the past decade, one-way manipulation of sound has attracted rapidly growing attention with application potentials in a plethora of scenarios ranging from ultrasound imaging to noise control. Here we propose a design of a planar device capable of unidirectionally harnessing the transmitted wavefront for broadband airborne sound. Our mechanism is to use the broken spatial symmetry to give rise to different critical angles for plane waves incident along opposite directions. Along the positive direction, the incoming sound is allowed to pass with high efficiency and be arbitrarily molded into the desired shape while any reversed wave undergoes a total reflection. We analytically derive the working bandwidth and incident angle range, and present a practical implementation of our strategy. The performance of our proposed device is demonstrated both theoretically and numerically via distinct examples of production of broadband anomalous refraction, acoustic focusing and non-diffractive beams for forward transmitted wave while virtually blocking the reversed waves. Bearing advantages of simple design, planar profile, broad bandwidth and high efficiency, our design opens the possibility for novel one-way acoustic device and may have important impact on diverse applications in need of special control of airborne sound.