Supplementary materials for

Acoustic perfect absorption and broadband insulation achieved by double-

zero metamaterials

Xiaole Wang,1, 2 Xudong Luo,3 Hui Zhao,1, 2 and Zhenyu Huang1, 2, a)

1
Department of Instrument Science and Engineering, School of Electronic Information and Electrical
Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People’s Republic of China.
2
Shanghai Engineering Research Center for Intelligent Diagnosis and Treatment Instrument, Shanghai
200240, People’s Republic of China.
3
School of Physics and Astronomy, Key Laboratory of Artificial Structures and Quantum Control
(Ministry of Education), and National Demonstration Center for Experimental Physics Education,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People’s Republic of China.
a)
Correspondence：bighuang@sjtu.edu.cn

Section 1: Experimental setup and acoustic parameters retrieval method

In order to avoid adopting a cumbersome sound impedance tube equipped ponderous

absorbing materials for realization of a nearly perfect anechoic termination at ultra-low

frequencies, we employ the two-load method based on the transfer matrix method (TMM) to

test and retrieve the acoustic properties of the samples1,2. The TMM can yield the exact

transmittance, reflectance and absorptance independent on the symmetry of the samples and

on the termination conditions. Moreover, the acoustic parameters, such as the wavenumbers

and the characteristic impedances of the samples, can be readily retrieved from the transfer

matrix elements. As shown in Figure S1, a loudspeaker (Type M3N, HiVi) mounted at one end

of the upstream tube generates random plane waves, and two different terminations, i.e.,

absorbent termination and rigid termination, mounted at one end of the downstream tube are

utilized to realize two different end-impedances for the two measurements. The sample

-1-
sandwiched between the two tubes are sealed carefully in the sample holder. Two couples of

1/4 inch microphones (Type 4187, Brüel & Kjær), labeled by 1 to 4, are positioned in the

upstream and downstream impedance tubes, respectively, to capture the sound pressure signals.

A data acquisition device (Type 3560C, Brüel & Kjær) is employed to record the sound

pressure signals which are then processed in a custom MATLAB program.

The transfer matrix related the sound pressures p and normal acoustic particle velocities

v on the two surfaces of the sample can be expressed as

 pt1 pt 2   pt1 pt 2  T11 T12 

v  T , T  T T  , (S1)
 t1 vt 2  z 0 v
 t1 vt 2  z d  21 22 

where the subscript t1 and t2 represent the first and second test with the absorbent and rigid

termination, respectively. The detailed expressions of the transfer matrix elements in Eq. (S1)

can be derived as

T11   pt1 z 0 vt2 zd  pt2 z 0 vt1 z d  p t1 z  d vt2 z d  pt2 z d vt1 z d ,

T12   pt2 z 0 pt1 z d  pt1 z 0 pt2 z d  p t1 z  d vt2 z d  pt2 z d vt1 z d ,
T21   vt1 z 0 vt2 z d  vt2 z 0 vt1 z d  p t1 z  d vt2 z d  pt2 z d vt1 z d ,
T22   vt2 z 0 pt1 z d  vt1 z 0 pt2 z d  p t1 z  d vt2 z d  pt2 z d vt1 z d , (S2)

where pi z 0 and pi z d ,  i  t1, t2  represent the sound pressures on the two surfaces of the

sample lied at z  0 and z  d , respectively. vi z 0 and vi z d represent the particle velocities

on the two surfaces of the sample lied at z  0 and z  d , respectively. These parameters can

be expressed in terms of the amplitudes of the incoming and outgoing plane wave, i.e.,

pi z 0  Ai  Bi , pi z d  Ci e jk0 d  Di e jk0 d ,

vi
 A  Bi  , v
 i 
C e i
 jk0 d
 Di e jk0d , (S3)
z 0 i z d
Z0 Z0

-2-
where k0 is the wavenumber in air and Z 0 is the characteristic impedance of air. The plane

wave amplitudes Ai to Di can be obtained from the four microphones, and they are


Ai  j pi1e jk0 z2  pi2 e jk0 z1  2 sin  k0  z1  z2   ,


Bi  j pi2 e  jk0 z1  pi1e  jk0 z2  2sin  k0  z1  z2   ,


Ci  j pi3e jk0 z4  pi4 e jk0 z3  2 sin  k0  z3  z4   ,


Di  j pi4 e  jk0 z3  pi3e  jk0 z4  2sin  k0  z3  z4   , (S4)

where pi1 to pi4 are the sound pressure at the locations of the four microphones, i.e., z1 to z4 .

(a)

Microphone
3 4

2
1

Downstream tube

x
Sample Holder z
Upstream tube y

(b) 4
3
2
1

Absorbent
termination

4
3
(c) 2
1

Rigid
termination
0d

Fig. S1. (a) Partial photograph of the experimental setup, (b) the first test with the absorbent termination,
and (c) the second test with the rigid termination.

2
For the case of an anechoic termination, the normal incidence transmittance Tan ,

-3-
 2
reflectance Ran and absorptance Aan , can be expressed as
2 2
2 2e jk0 d 2 T  T Z  Z 0T21  T22
Tan  , Ran  11 12 0 ,
T11  T12 Z 0  Z 0T21  T22 T11  T12 Z 0  Z 0T21  T22
2 2
Aan  1  Tan  Ran , (S5)

where Tan and Ran are the normal incidence pressure transmission and reflection coefficients,

respectively. In addition, the normal incidence sound transmission loss (STL) can be easily
2
obtained by STL  10 log10 1 Tan .

The wavenumber and characteristic impedance of a finite, homogeneous and isotropic

fluid layer can be evaluated directly from the four transfer matrix elements. In particular, the

wavenumber and the characteristic impedance of the fluid layer can be calculated as

arccosT11 T
kf  , f cf  12 (S6)
d T21

The other acoustic parameters such as the complex sound speed, cf   kf , the complex

mass density, f , and the complex bulk modulus, Bf  f cf2 , can be readily determined from

Eq. (S6).

Section 2: Numerical simulation model based on the finite element method

A numerical simulation model based on the finite element (FE) method was developed

by the acoustic-structure interaction module of COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3. Since the

proposed structure is axisymmetric, we established the axisymmetric two-dimensional FE

model for reducing computational time. As shown in Figure S2 (a), the FE model comprises

the unit cell and two air domains connected to the bottom and top sides of the unit cell,

respectively. The clamped boundary conditions are applied to the lateral boundaries of

membranes in each acoustic metamaterial (AM1 and AM2). Moreover, the hard-wall boundary

-4-
conditions are applied to the lateral boundaries of the unit cell and air domains. Both air

domains are terminated by the plane-wave-radiation boundaries to avoid multi-reflections of

sound waves.

(a) Plane wave radiation (b)

Transmitted

Hard wall
AM1
Clamped
Hard wall
Unit cell

z=0

Clamped
Hard wall

AM2

Reflected
Incident
Plane wave radiation
Fig. S2. Schematic drawing of the numerical simulation model based on the finite element method. (a)
Illustration of boundary conditions. The bold magenta arrows indicate incident sound waves. (b) Schematic
diagram of the retrieval method for Zq.

Based on the analysis in the manuscript, the acoustic impedances Z q of the two AMs can

be calculated independently. Hence, we established another two FE models for retrieving the

lumped acoustic impedance of each AM, as shown in Figure S2 (b). The sound pressures pq ,

pq and particle velocities vq , vq can be obtained by the built-in variables and function

operators in COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3.

Section 3: Effective acoustic parameters of the porous material

The porous material used in this letter is fiberglass wool which has relatively limp frames.

Thus, we adopt the Johnson-Champoux-Allard (JCA) model with the limp frame porous

approximation to model the fiberglass wool as an effective fluid layer by an effective mass

density  p and an effective bulk modulus Bp . According to the JCA model, 3,4  p and Bp can

-5-
be expressed as

ri M ap  02    4 2  

p  ,  ri  0  1  j 1  j 2 2 0 2  , (S7)
M ap  ri  2 0   0     
 P0
Bp  1
, (S8)
 8 2 Pr  0 
      1  1  j 2 1 j 
  Pr  0 16 
 

where ri is the effective mass density of the equivalent fluid layer with rigid frames, and

M ap   dr   0 is the apparent mass of the equivalent fluid layer. dr and 0 are the drained

mass density and the mass density of saturating air, respectively.  ,   ,  ,  ,  , five

crucial parameters in the JCA model, are open porosity, tortuosity factor, static airflow

resistivity, viscous characteristic length and thermal characteristic length, respectively.  is

the dynamic viscosity of saturating air.  is the ratio of the specific heat capacities. P0 is the

atmospheric pressure, and Pr is the Prandtl number. Under the condition of 1 atmosphere and

20 C in air, we choose   1.8 10-5 Pa  s ,   1.4 , P0  1.01325  105 Pa , Pr  0.7 , and

 0  1.2 kg m 3 to calculate  p and Bp .5 The other acoustic parameters of the porous material

layer used in the theoretical works are listed in Table S1.

Table S1. The acoustical parameters of the porous material used in the JCA model

     dr
Material
(-) (-) ( N  s  m 4 ) (m) (m) ( kg m3 )

Fiberglass
0.9861 1.01 25000 2.7  104 5.3  104 9.6
wool

Figure S3 depicts the effective acoustic parameters of the fiberglass wool. It can be found

that the predicted and measured effective mass density and bulk modulus are in good agreement

over the entire frequency range except for ultra-low frequencies, i.e., lower than 300 Hz, due

to lack of information at low frequencies for thermal effects in the JCA model. Nevertheless,

-6-
the JCA model still has enough accuracy to describe the absorbing properties of the fiberglass

wool at the frequencies of interest.

1000
(a) (b) (c) (d)
900

800
Frequency (Hz)

700

600

500

400

300

200

100
-40 -20 0 20 40 -40 -20 0 20 40 -10 -5 0 5 10 -10 -5 0 5 10

Fig. S3. Effective acoustic parameters of the fiberglass wool. (a) The real parts and (b) imaginary parts of
the normalized effective mass density, (c) the real parts and (d) imaginary parts of the normalized effective
bulk modulus. The solid curves and circles represent the theoretical and experimental results, respectively.

1000
(a) (b) (c) (d)
900

800
Frequency (Hz)

700

600

500

400

300

200

100
0 2 4 6 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
STL (dB) Transmittance Reflectance Absorptance
Fig. S4. The normal incidence (a) STL, (b) transmittance, (c) reflectance, and (d) absorbance of the fiberglass
wool with a thickness of 15 mm under the condition of an anechoic termination. The solid curves and circles
represent the theoretical and experimental results, respectively.

Figure S4 demonstrates the comparison of theoretical and experimental results of the

-7-
normal incidence STL, transmittance, reflectance and absorbance of the fiberglass wool under

the condition of an anechoic termination. We can also see that the theoretical and experimental

results are match well for each quantity at the frequencies of interest.

Section 4: Asymmetric absorption characteristic of the coupled metamaterials

The proposed layered acoustic material exhibits an asymmetric absorption behavior when

plane sound waves are incident from the two different sides.

1000
(a) (b) (c) (d)
900

800
Frequency (Hz)

700

600

500

400

300

200

100
0 30 60 90 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
STL (dB) Transmittance Reflectance Absorptance
Fig. S5. When sound waves emitted from the opposite side, the normal incidence (a) STL, (b) transmittance,
(c) reflectance, and (d) absorbance of the of the unit cell sample under the condition of an anechoic
termination. The solid curves and circles represent the theoretical and experimental results, respectively.

Figure S5 shows the theoretical and experimental results of the normal incidence STL,

transmittance, reflectance and absorptance of the unit cell sample under the condition of an

anechoic termination when sound waves firstly impinge on AM1. It can be found that the

theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental ones, and the results of STL

and transmittance shown in Figures S5(a) and S5(b) are nearly identical to those shown in

Figures 2(a) and 2(b) in the manuscript, respectively. However, the perfect absorption (PA)

-8-
originally appeared at 312 Hz in Figure 2(d) no longer present in Figure S5(d) due to the

impedance mismatching between AM1 and the facing sound waves under such an incident

condition. Almost total sound energy is actually reflected by the acoustic system at this critical

frequency, as shown in Figure S5(c).

(a) (b) (c) (d)

30 30
25 25
Arc length of z-axis (mm)

Arc length of z-axis (mm)

20 20
15 15
10 10
5 5
0 0
-5 -5
-10 -10
-15 -15
0 5 10 15 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 5 10 15 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Arc length of x-axis (mm) |p | (Pa) Arc length of x-axis (mm) |v | (mm/s)

(Pa) (mm/s)
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Fig. S6. Simulated field distributions of (a) absolute sound pressure and (c) absolute normal particle velocity
near LAM at the critical frequency of 312 Hz. The vertical straight black dot-dashed lines indicate the
symmetry axes, i.e., x = 0. The black and white regions stand for AM1 and AM2, respectively. A plane wave
with an amplitude of 1 Pa is emitted from the top, represented by the bold magenta arrows. The respective
values of (b) absolute sound pressure and (d) absolute normal particle velocity along the symmetry axes.

In order to intuitively observe the asymmetric absorption characteristic of the proposed

acoustic system at this critical frequency, Figures S6(a) and S6(c) illustrate the fields of

absolute sound pressure p and absolute normal particle velocity vz calculated from the FE

model, respectively. We can clearly see that most of sound waves are reflected back by AM1

due to its enormous acoustic impedance. Therefore, sound energy cannot be trapped in the

space between AM1 and AM2, and thus the porous material filled in this space cannot play the

critical role in dissipating. Moreover, Figures S6(b) and S6(d) plot the values of p and vz

-9-
along the x = 0 axis, respectively. It can be found that the values of p outside the AM1 are

almost twice of the incident value, and the values of vz reach a peak in the vicinity of AM1,

which also indicates that the sound waves are nearly total reflected by AM1.

Section 5: Conditions for achieving perfect absorption at multiple frequencies

Here, we take an acoustic system which comprises three layers of AMs sandwiching two

layers of porous material as an example, to analyse the conditions for achieving perfect

absorption (PA) at multiple frequencies. As shown in Figure S7, the acoustic system is

mathematically equivalent to a corresponding electrical system. In this equivalent circuit, the

three AMs analogous to the three electrical inductances with impedances of Z1 , Z 2 and Z3 ,

respectively, and the two layers of porous material analogous to the two electrical capacitances

with impedances of Z p1 and Z p2 , respectively.

(a) (b)

AM1

AM2
z
AM3
y
x

Fig. S7. (a) Schematic diagram of an acoustic system comprising three layers of coupled AMs and two
layers of porous material filled between adjacent AMs. (b) The equivalent circuit of this acoustic system.

Thus, the surface acoustic impedance of the entire acoustic system can be expressed as

Z p 2  Z 2  Z p1  Z1  Z 0   Z p1  Z1  Z 0  
Zs  Z3  . (S9)
Z p2  Z 2  Z p1  Z1  Z 0   Z p1  Z1  Z 0 

When the impedance of AM2 is significant, i.e., Z 2   , Eq. (S9). can be degenerated to

Z s  Z 3  Z p2 . (S10)

- 10 -
At this point, the PA conditions are that the real part of Z 3  Z p 2 is equal to the characteristic

impedance of air, i.e., Z0 , and the imaginary part of Z 3  Z p 2 is zero. In addition, if the

impedance of AM1 is significant, i.e., Z1   , then, Eq. (S9). can be rewritten as

Z p2  Z 2  Z p1 
Zs  Z3  . (S11)
Z p2  Z 2  Z p1

In this case, the conditions for achieving PA are as follows

 Z p 2  Z 2  Z p1    Z p2  Z 2  Z p1  
Real  Z 3    Z 0 , and Imag  Z 3    0. (S12)
 Z p2  Z 2  Z p1   Z p2  Z 2  Z p1 
   

References

1
B. H. Song and J. S. Bolton, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 107, 1131 (2000).

2
Y. Salissou and R. Panneton, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 2083 (2009).

3
T. J. Cox and P. D’Antonio, Acoustic absorbers and diffusers: theory, design and application,

3rd ed. (CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2017) p.206.

4
R. Panneton, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 122, EL217 (2007).

5
T. L. Bergman, A. S. Lavine, F. P. Incropera and D. P. Dewitt, Fundamentals of heat and mass

transfer, 7rd ed. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, 2011) p.995.

- 11 -