Ultrathin Acoustic Metasurface-Based Schroeder Diffuser

TLDR

The Schroeder diffuser, a classical design for optimal sound diffusion, has been widely used in acoustics but its conventional thickness of about one wavelength limits low‑frequency applications. This work proposes an ultra‑thin, planar Schroeder diffuser built on acoustic metasurface concepts. The diffuser uses a metasurface architecture to achieve diffusion while reducing thickness to roughly one‑tenth of the conventional design. Numerical and experimental tests confirm that the metasurface diffuser produces satisfactory diffuse reflection, one‑tenth the thickness of conventional diffusers, and shows promise for architectural acoustics and related fields.

Abstract

Schroeder diffuser is a classical design, proposed over 40 years ago, for artificially creating optimal and predictable sound diffuse reflection. It has been widely adopted in architectural acoustics and it has also shown substantial potential in noise control, ultrasound imaging, microparticle manipulation, among others. The conventional Schroeder diffuser, however, has a considerable thickness on the order of one wavelength, severely impeding its applications for low frequency sound. In this paper, a new class of ultra-thin and planar Schroeder diffusers are proposed based on the concept of acoustic metasurface. Both numerical and experimental results demonstrate satisfactory sound diffuse reflection produced from the metasurface-based Schroeder diffuser despite it being one order of magnitude thinner than the conventional one. The proposed design not only offer promising building blocks with great potential to profoundly impact architectural acoustics and related fields, but also constitutes a major step towards real-world applications of acoustic metasurfaces.