Beyond-nearest-neighbour metamaterials

Engineering the dispersion of acoustic or elastic waves using coupling terms that spatially reach beyond the immediate local environment, or unit cell, is an “emerging topic” in Metamaterial design. In this talk, we present experimental studies in acoustic and elastic systems that realize beyond-nearest-neighbour coupling to introduce dispersion relations with extrema within the first Brilloun Zone. In acoustics, we use mixed waveguide-surfacewave coupling, while in elasticity we develop an elastic scaffold (made from meccano) with reconfigurable coupling elements and demonstrate the effects of structural symmetries on these exotic dispersion relations. Applications to enhanced energy harvesting structures are presented by leveraging zero-group-velocity modes.