Acoustic metamaterials offer great flexibility for manipulating sound waves and promise unprecedented functionality, ranging from transformation acoustics, super-resolution imaging to acoustic cloaking. However, the design of acoustic metamaterials with exciting functionality remains challenging with traditional approaches using classic acoustic elements such as Helmholtz resonators and membranes. Here we demonstrate an ultraslow-fluid-like particle with intense artificial Mie resonances for low-frequency airborne sound. Eigenstate analysis and effective parameter retrieval show two individual negative bands in the single-size unit cell, one of which exhibits a negative bulk modulus supported by the monopolar Mie resonance, whereas the other exhibits a negative mass density induced by the dipolar Mie resonance. The unique single-negative nature is used to develop an ultra-sparse subwavelength metasurface with high reflectance for low-frequency sound. We demonstrate a 0.15λ-thick, 15%-filling ratio metasurface with an insertion loss over 93.4%. The designed Mie resonators provide diverse routes to construct novel acoustic devices with versatile applications.

We designed, fabricated, and experimentally demonstrated a gradient acoustic metasurface to manipulate sound radiation patterns. The gradient metasurface is constructed on the basis of a coiling-up space in a tunable interdigitated structure, which exhibits relative refractive index in a discretized classic hyperbolic secant profile. Capable of generating secondary sound sources with desired gradient phase shifts, the metasurface shows the ability of controlling sound radiation such as by cylindrical-to-plane-wave conversion, plane wave focusing, and effective tunable acoustic negative refraction. Owing to its deep-subwavelength thickness, the metasurface may reduce the size of acoustic devices and offer potential applications in imaging and scanning systems.

We have realized the acoustic rainbow trapping in the low frequency region (200–500 Hz) through micro Mie resonance-based structures. The structure has eight channels with a high refractive index obtained by coiling space, that can excite strong interactions with incident waves and support various orders of multipoles due to the Mie resonances of the microstructure. By utilizing the structure, the precise spatial modulation of the acoustic wave is demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally. The effect of trapping broadband acoustic waves and spatially separating different frequency components are ascribed to the monopolar Mie resonances of the structures. The trapping frequency is derived and the trapping positions can be tuned arbitrarily. With enhanced wave-structure interactions and tailored frequency responses, such micro structures show precise spectral-spatial control of acoustic waves and open a diverse venue for high performance acoustic wave detection, sensing, filtering, and a nondestructive test.