This paper describes some exotic scattering properties of a one-dimensional network of thermoacoustic cells and characterizes them experimentally. The considered two-port consists of a waveguide containing a periodic arrangement of porous materials subjected to temperature gradients and separated by empty sections. The interaction of an acoustic wave with the temperature gradients leads to an inherently nonreciprocal phenomenon known as the thermoacoustic effect. It is shown that this effect can be exploited for the design of systems with exotic acoustic scattering properties through two experimental demonstrations. The first example showcases a balanced asymmetric transmitter with transmission coefficients inverse of each other, yielding a nonreciprocity factor of 18 dB, without reflections. The second example shows a coherent perfect absorber, where maximum absorption is achieved for a wide range of temperature gradients by controlling the relative amplitudes and phasing of incoming waves.

The absorption of airborne sound is still a subject of active research, and even more since the emergence of acoustic metamaterials. Although being subwavelength, the screen barriers developed so far cannot absorb more than 50% of an incident wave at very low frequencies (<100 Hz). Here, we explore the design of a subwavelength and broadband absorbing screen based on thermoacoustic energy conversion. The system consists of a porous layer kept at room temperature on one side while the other side is cooled down to a very low temperature using liquid nitrogen. At the absorbing screen, the sound wave experiences both a pressure jump caused by viscous drag, and a velocity jump caused by thermoacoustic energy conversion breaking reciprocity and allowing a one-sided absorption up to 95 % even in the infrasound regime. By overcoming the ordinary low frequency absorption limit, thermoacoustic effects open the door to the design of innovative devices.