Conformal diffusion acoustic metasurfaces with soft materials for scattering reduction

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/ae2bf0

Abstract Planar diffusion acoustic metasurfaces (PDAMs) with rigid materials have attracted much attention due to their ability to redistribute acoustic energy in various directions and to realize acoustic stealth. In this paper, to enhance the adaptability of PDAMs to complex curved surfaces, a conformal diffusion acoustic metasurface (CDAM) with soft materials is proposed to manipulate scattering features, leading to considerable scattering reduction in the specular direction. To realize the proposed CDAM, eight kinds of meta-atoms with phase differences of 45$^\circ$ are introduced. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is chosen as the material of meta-atoms, which not only has a low modulus but also possesses the ability to deform compliantly with environmental conditions. The simulated results demonstrate that the proposed CDAM can achieve backward scattering reduction of at least 9 dB with bending angles of the CDAM from 0$^\circ$ to 90$^\circ$, and has potential applications in noise control, acoustic stealth, architectural acoustics, and other relevant applications.

Keywords: conformal diffusion acoustic metasurface scattering reduction soft materials coding metasurface

Received: 24 September 2025
Revised: 09 December 2025
Accepted manuscript online: 12 December 2025

PACS:	43.20.Fn	(Scattering of acoustic waves)
	43.20.+g	(General linear acoustics)
	43.35.+d	(Ultrasonics, quantum acoustics, and physical effects of sound)

Fund: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52305099, 52305249, and 12562014) and the Guizhou Provincial Basic Research Program (Natural Science) (Grant No. MS (2026) 187).

Corresponding Authors: Wenkang Cao, Jie Hu
E-mail: wkcao@gzu.edu.cn;jiehu@gzu.edu.cn

Cite this article:

Kunhong Li(李昆鸿), Wenkang Cao(曹文康), Qiao Huang(黄桥), Jinsong Ye(叶劲松), Kaiping Nie(聂开萍), and Jie Hu(胡捷) Conformal diffusion acoustic metasurfaces with soft materials for scattering reduction 2026 Chin. Phys. B 35 064301

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Conformal diffusion acoustic metasurfaces with soft materials for scattering reduction

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