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Science 8 September 2000:
Vol. 289. no. 5485, pp. 1734 - 1736
DOI: 10.1126/science.289.5485.1734
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Reports

Locally Resonant Sonic Materials

Zhengyou Liu, Xixiang Zhang, Yiwei Mao, Y. Y. Zhu, Zhiyu Yang, C. T. Chan, Ping Sheng*

We have fabricated sonic crystals, based on the idea of localized resonant structures, that exhibit spectral gaps with a lattice constant two orders of magnitude smaller than the relevant wavelength. Disordered composites made from such localized resonant structures behave as a material with effective negative elastic constants and a total wave reflector within certain tunable sonic frequency ranges. A 2-centimeter slab of this composite material is shown to break the conventional mass-density law of sound transmission by one or more orders of magnitude at 400 hertz.

Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: phsheng{at}ust.hk

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)