Time domain characteristics of wave motion in dispersive and anisotropic continuum acoustic metamaterials

The authors study the wave propagation in continuum acoustic metamaterials whose all or not all of the principal elements of the mass tensor or the scalar compressibility can be negative due to wave dispersion. Their time-domain wave characteristics are particularly investigated by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, in which algorithms for the Drude and Lorentz dispersion pertinent to acoustic metamaterials are provided necessarily. Wave propagation nature of anisotropic acoustic metamaterials with all admissible material parameters are analyzed in a general manner. It is found that anomalous negative refraction phenomena can appear in several dispersion regimes, and their unique time-domain signatures have been discovered by the FDTD modeling. It is further proposed that two different metamaterial layers with specially assigned dispersions could comprise a conjugate pair that permits wave propagation only at specific points in the wave vector space. The time-domain pulse simulation verifies that acoustic directive radiation capable of modulating radiation angle with the wave frequency can be realized with this conjugate pair. The study provides the detailed analysis of wave propagation in anisotropic and dispersive acoustic mediums, which makes a further step toward dispersion engineering and transient wave control through acoustic metamaterials.