Impact of polydispersity on multipolar resonant scattering in emulsions

The influence of size polydispersity on the resonant acoustic properties of dilute emulsions, made of fluorinated-oil droplets, is quantitatively investigated. Ultrasound attenuation and dispersion measurements on various samples with controlled size polydispersities, ranging from 1% to 13%, are found to be in excellent agreement with predictions based on the independent scattering approximation. By relating the particle-size distribution of the synthesized emulsions to the quality factor of the predicted multipolar resonances, the number of observable acoustic resonances is shown to be imposed by the sample polydispersity. These results are briefly discussed into the context of metamaterials for which scattering resonances are central to their effective properties.