Physics Letters A 381 (2017) 2283–2286

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Physics Letters A
www.elsevier.com/locate/pla

Broadband asymmetric acoustic transmission through an acoustic

prism
Ailing Song ∗ , Tianning Chen ∗ , Xiaopeng Wang, Yanhui Xi
School of Mechanical Engineering and State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s
Republic of China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Narrow bandwidth and complex structure are the main shortcomings of the existing asymmetric acoustic
Received 23 February 2017 transmission devices. In this letter, a simple broadband asymmetric acoustic transmission device is
Received in revised form 11 April 2017 proposed by using an acoustic prism filled with xenon gas. The sound pressure field distributions,
Accepted 15 May 2017
the transmission spectra, and the prism angle effect are numerically investigated by using finite
Available online 19 May 2017
Communicated by V.A. Markel
element method. The proposed device can always realize asymmetric acoustic transmission for the wave
frequency larger than 480 Hz because the wave paths are not influenced by the wave frequencies. The
Keywords: asymmetric acoustic transmission is attributed to normal refraction and total reflection occur at different
Asymmetric acoustic transmission interfaces. Besides, relatively high transmission efficiency is realized due to the similar impedance
Acoustic prism between the acoustic prism and background. And the transmitted wave direction can be controlled freely
Total reflection by changing the prism angle. Our design provides a simple method to obtain broadband asymmetric
Refraction acoustic transmission device and has potentials in many applications, such as noise control and medical
ultrasound.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The asymmetric acoustic transmission (AAT) devices can re-
alize the asymmetric transmission of acoustic waves, and have
attracted growing attentions due to its potential applications in
various fields, such as noise control [1] and medical ultrasound [2].
Initially, the AAT devices were realized by breaking the time
reversal symmetry based on nonlinear mechanism. Liang et al.
[3–5] theoretically and experimentally investigated the asymmet-
ric acoustic transmission in an AAT device consisting of a strongly
nonlinear medium and a superlattice. However, the nonlinear sys-
tem suffers from many disadvantages, such as frequency change,
low conversion efficiency, and complex structure [6]. To overcome
these obstacles, many researchers have devoted to designing lin-
ear AAT devices by breaking the spatial inversion symmetry and
various structures are utilized, such as acoustic gratings [7–10],
phononic crystals [11,12], and acoustic metasurfaces [13–16].
Although the existing AAT devices can realize asymmetric
acoustic transmission, it is apparent that they have several com-
mon drawbacks which will restrict their potential applications.
* Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: ailing_song@126.com (A. Song), tnchen@mail.xjtu.edu.cn
(T. Chen).
First, the AAT devices are valid only at a certain frequency or
within some narrow frequency ranges. The AAT device proposed
by Zhu et al. [17] can take effect only at the designed frequency,
and that designed by Song et al. [18] is effective only within two
frequency ranges. Second, the structures of these AAT devices are
complicated. Li et al. [19] used gradient-index structure and Wang
et al. [20] used acoustic metasurfaces to design AAT devices with
broad bandwidth, but these models all have extremely complicated
structures. Therefore, it is necessary to explore a new method to
design AAT device with broad bandwidth and simple structure. In
optical field, asymmetric transmission can be realized by prisms
based on photonic crystals. Gundogdu et al. [21] demonstrated the
asymmetric transmission in a single photonic crystal prism and
a single solid uniform prism. Specially, the asymmetric transmis-
sion in homogeneous prism with relative permittivity larger than
unity is attributed to refraction at the wedge in backward case
and nearly total internal reflections at the wedge in forward case.
Wang et al. [22] realized unidirectional light transmission by using
a heterojunction structure composed of two square-lattice pho-
tonic crystals. Later, Oh et al. [23] investigated the one-sided elastic
wave transmission by using an inverted bi-prism phononic crystal
based on refraction and total reflection. Inspired by prisms used to
realize asymmetric transmission, we propose an acoustic prism to

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2017.05.034
0375-9601/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2284 A. Song et al. / Physics Letters A 381 (2017) 2283–2286
Fig. 1. Schematic view of the proposed AAT device composed of an acoustic prism.
(For interpretation of the references to color in this figure, the reader is referred to
the web version of this article.)
Fig. 2. Schematic views of the wave paths when the acoustic waves are incident
from (a) left and (b) right. (For interpretation of the references to color in this fig-
ure, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
realize asymmetric acoustic transmission and our proposed mech-
anism derives from that proposed by Gundogdu.
In this paper, we design a simple AAT device by using an acous-
tic prism filled with xenon gas. The sound pressure field distri-
butions, the transmission spectra, and the prism angle effect are
numerically analyzed, and the simulations are performed by COM-
SOL Multiphysics software based on finite element method [24].
Compared with the previous AAT devices, the proposed AAT device
is effective within a very broad frequency range, which is impor-
tant in practical applications. The designed device has a simple
structure and is easy to demonstrate experimentally. In particular,
the proposed device has a wider frequency range than the de-
sign shown in reference [16], and the device is simpler than our
group’s previous design in reference [20]. Besides, relatively high
transmission efficiency can be realized, and the directions of the
transmitted waves can be controlled freely by changing the prism
angle. Our mechanism provides a simple method to design broad-
band AAT devices and have potential applications in many fields,
such as noise control and medical ultrasound.
2. Model and design
The broadband AAT device is designed by using an acoustic
prism filled with xenon gas, the schematic view of the proposed
AAT device is shown in Fig. 1. The acoustic prism is a structure
with right triangle section (labeled with “ABC”) and the prism
angle is α . As the acoustic prism is filled with xenon gas and im-
mersed in air, separation method is taken to prevent the mutual
gas diffusion. The different regions of xenon and air can be sep-
arated by using polyethylene films (thin enough to be regarded
as transparent to acoustic waves) in the experiment, which have
been used successfully in the previous experiment [5]. The acous-
tic prism can modulate the directions of the transmitted waves
freely according to the classical Snell’s law. The rigid boundaries
shown in Fig. 1 can completely reflect the incoming waves. To sim-
plify the wave paths, boundary BC is set as absorptive boundary to
completely absorb the incoming waves. And the absorptive bound-
ary can be realized by metamaterials or traditional materials, such
as spongy, porous or fiber materials. Besides, the blue and red ar-
rows indicate the incident wave directions of left incidence (LI)
and right incidence (RI), respectively. When the plane waves are
incident from left and right, the wave paths denoted by red ar-
row lines are shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b), respectively. As shown
Fig. 3. Sound pressure field distributions when a Gaussian beam of 8 kHz is incident
from xenon gas to air with incident angle (a) 20◦ and (b) 40◦ . (For interpretation
of the references to color in this figure, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.)
in Fig. 2(a), the plane wave of LI impinges on the interface AB
obliquely and normal refraction occurs at interfaces AB and AC.
The wave passes through the acoustic prism and then impinges on
the rigid boundaries, so the plane wave of LI can pass through the
proposed device, which can be identified as “positive direction”.
However, in Fig. 2(b), the plane wave of RI impinges on interface
AC normally and passes the interface horizontally. Then total re-
flection occurs at interface AB because the incident angle θi3 is
larger than the critical angle. Therefore, the plane wave of RI can-
not pass through the proposed device, which can be identified as
“negative direction”. As a result, the proposed device can realize
asymmetric acoustic transmission when normal refraction and to-
tal reflection occur at different interfaces.
It’s necessary to point out that the prism angle α need to be
designed carefully in order to achieve asymmetric acoustic trans-
mission. The sound velocities in xenon and air are c X = 169 m/s,
c A = 343 m/s, respectively. The acoustic impedances of xenon and
air are Z X = 996.1 Pa · s/m, Z A = 442.5 Pa · s/m, respectively [25].
The refractive indexes of xenon gas and air are nX = 2.03, nA = 1,
respectively. When the acoustic wave impinges on the interface
between two gases with different refractive index, refraction will
occur and obey the classical Snell’s law [26]:
sin(θi ) · ni = sin(θt ) · nt , (1)
where θi and θt are the incident angle and refraction angle, respec-
tively. ni and nt are the refractive index of incident medium and
transmitted medium, respectively.
When the acoustic wave impinges on the interface between
xenon gas and air, there are two cases. When the acoustic wave is
incident from air into xenon gas, the normal refraction can always
occur and the refraction angle is smaller than the incident angle.
Conversely, when the acoustic wave is incident from xenon gas
into air, the refraction angle is larger than the incident angle and
the critical angle for total reflection is θc = sin−1 (c X /c A ) = 29.5◦ .
When a Gaussian beam of 8 kHz is incident from xenon gas to air
with different incident angles, the sound pressure field distribu-
tions are shown in Fig. 3. If the incident angle (θi = 20◦ ) is smaller
than the critical angle θc , the normal refraction occurs, as shown
in Fig. 3(a). But if the incident angle (θi = 40◦ ) is larger than the
critical angle θc , the total reflection occurs, as shown in Fig. 3(b).
According to the different performances at the interfaces be-
tween xenon gas and air, we design this kind of AAT device. For
LI case, the incident angle at interface AB is θi1 = α , the refraction
angle at interface AB is θt1 = sin−1 (sin(θi1 ) · nA /nX ), the incident
angle at interface AC is θi2 = α − θt1 , the refraction angle at inter-
face AC is θt2 = sin−1 (sin(θi2 ) · nX /nA ). According to the designed
wave path of LI case that normal refraction occurs at interface AC,
the incident angle at interface AC needs to satisfy θi2 < θc , that is
α < 53◦ . For RI case, the incident angle at interface AB is θi3 = α .
 A. Song et al. / Physics Letters A 381 (2017) 2283–2286
Fig. 4. Sound pressure field distribution for LI and RI cases at (a) 5 kHz, (b) 8 kHz, and (c) 10 kHz. The white arrows indicate the incident wave directions. (For interpretation
of the references to color in this figure, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
To ensure the total reflection occurs at interface AB for RI case,
the incident angle at interface AB needs to satisfy θi3 > θc , that is
α > 29.5◦ . From the above analysis, the prism angle should sat-
isfy 29.5◦ < α < 53◦ to ensure the proposed device can realize
asymmetric acoustic transmission. Up to now, we have finished the
design of the proposed AAT device.
3. Numerical results and discussion
3.1. Sound pressure field distributions
To intuitively demonstrate the asymmetric acoustic transmis-
sion performance of the designed AAT device, the sound pres-
sure field distributions for LI and RI cases at different frequen-
cies are calculated and shown in Fig. 4, where (a), (b), and (c) is
shown for f = 5 kHz, f = 8 kHz, and f = 10 kHz, respectively.
The color maps indicate the sound pressure values. In this pa-
per, the prism angle is α = 40◦ and the boundary AC = 30 cm.
For LI case, the plane wave is refracted normally at interfaces AB
and AC, and transmits through the acoustic prism with refraction
angle θt2 = 48.2◦ . Then the transmitted wave impinges on the rigid
boundary with normal reflection, and some sound pressure distri-
butions can be observed at the right side of the device. Therefore,
the plane wave of LI can pass the AAT device with high transmis-
sion efficiency as the impedances of acoustic prism and air are in
the same orders of magnitude. For RI case, total reflection occurs
at interface AB and no sound pressure field distributes at the left
side of the device. Therefore, the acoustic propagation for RI case
is forbidden. It is worth noting that the wave paths for different
wave frequencies are same, which means the designed AAT de-
vice can operate within a broad frequency range. The simulation
results exhibits that the specially designed acoustic prim shows
different performaces at different interfaces, which play an impor-
tant role in realizing asymmetric acoustic transmission. The sim-
ulation results agree well with the theoretical predictions, which
demonstrate that the proposed AAT device can realize asymmetric
acoustic transmission.
3.2. Transmission spectra
To demonstrate the broadband performance of the proposed
AAT device, the transmittance from 0 kHz to 10 kHz for LI (blue
solid line) and RI (red solid line) cases are calculated and shown
in Fig. 5. When the wave frequency is less than 480 Hz, the asym-
metric acoustic transmission is invalid, which is attributed to the
2285
Fig. 5. Transmission spectra of the proposed AAT device for LI (blue solid line) and
RI (red solid line) cases. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure
legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
acoustic prism size is close to the wavelength and diffraction oc-
curs. When the wave frequency increases to 480 Hz, the device
begins to exhibit asymmetric acoustic transmission performance
and some fluctuations can be observed in the transmission spec-
trum of LI case. For the wave frequency greater than 1150 Hz, the
transmittance of LI case is more than 80% and that of RI case
is less than 5%. When the wave frequency further increases to
1750 Hz, the transmittance of LI case is more than 90% and that
of RI case is less than 3%. Specially, the transmittance of RI case is
nearly zero for the wave frequency larger than 3000 Hz. The results
demonstrate that the proposed AAT device can realize asymmetric
acoustic transmission within a broad frequency range from 480 Hz
to 10000 Hz, which is a great advantage of the proposed device.
Actually, the proposed AAT device is still effective when the wave
frequencies are larger than 10 kHz. The broadband performance is
attributed to the wave paths for both LI and RI cases are not influ-
enced by the wave frequencies.
3.3. Effect of the prism angle
According to theoretical predictions and simulation results, the
proposed AAT device can realize asymmetric acoustic transmission
when the prism angle satisfies 29.5◦ < α < 53◦ . It is necessary to
investigate the effect of prism angle on the transmitted waves for
LI case. For LI case, the transmitted wave direction can be denoted
2286 A. Song et al. / Physics Letters A 381 (2017) 2283–2286
Fig. 6. Transmitted wave direction θt2 as a function of the prism angle
by θt2 (shown in Fig. 2(a)) and expressed as θt2 = sin−1 (sin(α −
sin−1 (sin(α ) · nA /nX )) · nX /nA ), the relationship between θt2 and
α is shown in Fig. 6. When the prism angle increases from 30◦
to 52◦ , θt2 is escalating faster and faster and increases from 33.4◦
to 81.5◦ . This means the transmitted wave of LI case is gradually
approaching y axis when we increase the prism angle. As a result,
it can be concluded that the transmitted wave direction for LI case
can be controlled freely by modulating the prism angle.
4. Conclusions
In this letter, we have proposed a broadband AAT device by us-
ing an acoustic prism filled with xenon gas. The acoustic prism
is designed carefully according to the classical Snell’s law, and the
prism angle α need to satisfy 29.5◦ < α < 53◦ to ensure the asym-
metric acoustic transmission can be realized. The sound pressure
field distributions and the transmission spectra demonstrate that
the proposed AAT device is valid for the wave frequency larger
than 480 Hz because the wave paths are not affected by the wave
frequencies. The asymmetric acoustic transmission is attributed
to normal refraction and total reflection happen at different in-
terfaces, and relatively high transmission efficiency is obtained.
The simulation results agree well with the theoretical predictions.
What is more, changing the prism angle can freely control the
transmitted wave directions. The proposed device has a simple
structure and is easy to demonstrate experimentally. Our design
provides a simple way to design broadband AAT devices and have
potentials in various applications, such as noise control and medi-
cal ultrasound.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the
Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.
51275377 and 51675402), the National Basic Research Program of
China (No. 2011CB610306), and Collaborative Innovation Center of
Suzhou Nano Science and Technology.
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