• Featured in Physics
  • Editors' Suggestion

Experiments on Elastic Cloaking in Thin Plates

Nicolas Stenger, Manfred Wilhelm, and Martin Wegener
Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 014301 – Published 3 January 2012
Physics logo See Viewpoint: Cloaking Comes Out of the Shadows
PDFHTMLExport Citation

Abstract

Following a theoretical proposal [M. Farhat et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 024301 (2009)], we design, fabricate, and characterize a cloaking structure for elastic waves in 1 mm thin structured polymer plates. The cloak consists of 20 concentric rings of 16 different metamaterials, each being a tailored composite of polyvinyl chloride and polydimethylsiloxane. By using stroboscopic imaging with a camera from the direction normal to the plate, we record movies of the elastic waves for monochromatic plane-wave excitation. We observe good cloaking behavior for carrier frequencies in the range from 200 to 400 Hz (one octave), in good agreement with a complete continuum-mechanics numerical treatment. This system is thus ideally suited for demonstration experiments conveying the ideas of transformation optics.

  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Received 3 November 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.014301

© 2012 American Physical Society

Viewpoint

Key Image

Cloaking Comes Out of the Shadows

Published 3 January 2012

Cloaking devices made of a composite of soft and hard materials can divert elastic vibrational waves around an object as though it wasn’t there.

See more in Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Nicolas Stenger1,*, Manfred Wilhelm2, and Martin Wegener1

  • 1Institute of Applied Physics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
  • 2Institute for Technical Chemistry and Polymer Chemistry, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany

  • *nicolas.stenger@kit.edu

Article Text (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand

Supplemental Material (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand

References (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand
Issue

Vol. 108, Iss. 1 — 6 January 2012

Reuse & Permissions
Access Options
Author publication services for translation and copyediting assistance advertisement

Authorization Required


×
×

Images

×

Sign up to receive regular email alerts from Physical Review Letters

Log In

Cancel
×

Search


Article Lookup

Paste a citation or DOI

Enter a citation
×