Abstract

The boost experienced by acoustic and mechanical metamaterial research during the past years has been driven by the ability to sculpture the flow of sound waves and vibrations at will. Metamaterials, which come in all kinds of shapes and forms, have initially been designed for electromagnetic metamaterials with key achievements such as negative refraction and invisibility cloaks. However, recent advances showcase how mechanical metamaterials constitute a fertile ground to harvest exotic elastic and elasto-static characteristics, which solely are controlled by the structure arrangement as opposed to its chemistry. I will discuss how these artificial media have been engineered in the form of architectured lightweight lattices with remarkable strength properties and unfeelability cloaks where objects cannot be felt when being covered by it. Next to these topics, I also focus on acoustics metamaterials with anisotropic fluid properties, abilities to break the diffraction limit, and finally I give a brief overview of acoustic topological insulators and their wave guiding capabilities.