A three-dimensional acoustic Luneburg meta-lens has the advantage of refracting sound waves for all incident angles and focusing higher sound pressure compared to a two-dimensional lens. The lens made of plastic with a diameter of 120 mm was designed with thousands of lattice column-shaped meta-atoms to maintain its three-dimensional shape. The lens's three-dimensional focusing performance and acoustic imaging were simulated and measured at the frequency range of 5 kHz ~ 20 kHz. The omnidirectional property was confirmed by rotating the lens to change the incident angle and measuring the sound pressure. The development of these spherical Luneburg meta-lenses is expected to improve the performance of devices that require acoustic focusing.
Conventional structural Luneburg lens is a symmetric circular gradient-index lens with refractive indices decreasing from the centre along the radial direction. In this paper, a flattened structural Luneburg lens (FSLL) based on structural thickness variations is designed by using the quasi-conformal transformation (QCT) technique. Through numerical simulations and experimental studies, the FSLL is demonstrated to have excellent beam steering performance for the manipulation of flexural wave propagation at desired angles.
Acoustic Luneburg lens is a symmetric gradient-index lens with a refractive index decreasing radially from the centre to the outer surface. It can be used to manipulate acoustic wave propagation with collimation and focusing capabilities. However, previously studied acoustic Luneburg lens works only at audible frequency ranges from 1 kHz to 7 kHz, or at a single ultrasonic frequency of 40 kHz. In addition, the acoustic Luneburg lens at high frequency is not omnidirectional in the previous researches. Furthermore, there is no realization of simulation and experimental testing of 3D acoustic Lun…
We report ultrasound beam steering based on 2D and 3D flattened acoustic metamaterial Luneburg lenses at 40 kHz. The effective properties of the lenses are obtained by using the quasi-conformal transformation (QCT) technique and solving the Laplace equation with Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. A 2D lens and a 3D lens were designed and fabricated. The numerical and experimental results with these lenses demonstrate excellent beam steering performance of ultrasonic waves in both near field and far field.
Applying the directionality of a Luneburg lens, a sound reception system for ships is designed. A two-dimensional acoustic Luneburg lens which is made of 253 acrylic pipes of different radii which control the refractive index is used. It has a large disk shape; a diameter of 180 cm and a height of 20 cm. The 8 microphones were installed around the edges of the lens. The sound reception ability of the lens was tested on the sea using the horn of a university training ship as an emitter and the lens loaded on a small boat as a receiver. Both are moving at 20 ~ 40 km/h at a distance of between 30…
This paper investigates the acoustic Luneburg Lens (ALL) as a design framework for guiding acoustic wave propagation. In this study, we propose to develop an acoustic waveguide based on the characteristics of both acoustic wave focusing and collimation of cascaded ALLs. The continuous variation of refractive index of the ALL is achieved by using lattice unit cells with a graded filling ratio. A cascaded ALL waveguide device is fabricated based on the additive manufacturing technique. The experimental results obtained with this device are consistent with the numerical simulations and theoretica…
In this paper, a novel gradient index (GRIN) structural lens based on the concept of generalized Luneburg lens (GLL) is proposed. This lens allows for the realization of double foci and localization of energy flow between the two focal spots, thereby achieving ultralong focusing. The double-foci GRIN lens consists of two concentric circular regions with varying thickness defined in a thin plate structure. The two concentric circular regions are designed to realize continuous change of refractive indices with different profiles. Numerical simulations and experimental studies are performed to ob…
In this paper, we explore the concept of structural Luneburg Lens (SLL) as a design framework for performing dynamic structural tailoring to obtain a structural wave cloak and a structural waveguide. The SLL is a graded refractive index lens, which is realized by using a variable thickness structure defined in a thin plate. Due to the thickness variation of the plate, the refractive index decreases radially from the centre to the outer surface of the lens. By taking advantage of the unique capabilities of SLL for flexural wave focusing and collimation, we develop a structural wave cloak and wa…
Luneburg lens is a symmetric gradient-index lens with a refractive index that increases from the outer surface to the center in a radial manner. It has the ability to focus and collimate waves, which makes it useful for energy harvesting, waveguiding and as a component in transducers. An ideal Luneburg lens should be easy to fabricate, has broadband and omnidirectional characteristics, as well as a focal length that can be easily tuned. However, existing structural Luneburg lenses based on phononic crystals can hardly achieve these requirements. Here, we propose an alternative structural Luneb…
We report on the theory of a Luneburg lens for forward-volume magnetostatic spin waves, and verify its operation via micromagnetic modelling. The lens converts a plane wave to a point source (and vice versa) by a designed graded index, realised here by either modulating the thickness or the saturation magnetization in a circular region. We find that the lens enhances the wave amplitude by 5 times at the lens focus, and 47% of the incident energy arrives in the focus region. Furthermore, small deviations in the profile can still result in good focusing, if the lens index is graded smoothly.
In integrated photonic circuits, silicon-on-insulator waveguides with different geometries have been employed to realize a variety of components. Therefore, efficient coupling of two different waveguides is crucial. In this paper, focusing property of the Luneburg lens is exploited to design waveguide tapers. The Luneburg lens, truncated in a shape of a parabolic taper with reduced footprint, is utilized to connect a 10 $μ$m-wide waveguide to a 0.5 $μ$m one with the same thickness with an average coupling loss of 0.35 dB in the entire O, E, S, C, L, and U bands of optical communications. The p…
We present a detailed analysis of a coupler based on the Luneburg lens to couple a silica waveguide to a photonic crystal waveguide. The dependence of coupling efficiency on the lens's truncation, cut position of the photonic crystal structure, coupler tip width, and misalignment are investigated with two-dimensional finite element method. We implement the lens with a concentric ring-based multilayer structure. We also present a method to replace layers with very narrow widths by layers of predetermined minimum widths in the structure of the lens. The coupling loss of the designed 2.7 $μm$-lon…
In this study, the design of a directional cloaking based on the Luneburg lens system is proposed and its operating principle is experimentally verified. The cloaking concept is analytically investigated via geometrical optics and numerically realized with the help of the finite-difference time-domain method. In order to benefit from its unique focusing and/or collimating characteristics of light, the Luneburg lens is used. We show that by the proper combination of Luneburg lenses in an array form, incident light bypasses the region between junctions of the lenses, i.e., the "dark zone." Hence…
This paper proposes an acoustic beam splitter based on acoustic Luneburg lens. A two-dimensional acoustic Luneburg lens with gradient refractive index is achieved to provide a practical realization for the acoustic beam splitter. The acoustic wave propagation through the beam splitter was explored theoretically, numerically and experimentally. Results show that three output channels can be achieved using a point source on the edge of the beam splitter in a broadband frequency range. Furthermore, the output channel directions can be tuned via changing the design parameter.
Varifocal lenses, conventionally implemented by changing the axial distance between multiple optical elements, have a wide range of applications in imaging and optical beam scanning. The use of conventional bulky refractive elements makes these varifocal lenses large, slow, and limits their tunability. Metasurfaces, a new category of lithographically defined diffractive devices, enable thin and lightweight optical elements with precisely engineered phase profiles. Here, we demonstrate tunable metasurface doublets, based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), with more than 60 diopters (abou…
Optical metasurfaces have been extensively investigated, demonstrating diverse and multiple functionalities with complete control over the transmitted and reflected fields. Most optical metasurfaces are however static, with only a few configurations offering (rather limited) electrical control, thereby jeopardizing their application prospects in emerging flat optics technologies. Here, we suggest an approach to realize electrically tunable optical metasurfaces, demonstrating dynamic Fresnel lens focusing. The active Fresnel lens (AFL) exploits the electro-optic Pockels effect in a 300-nm-thick…
