Steven Cummer
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Duke University
Presenting in Track 1: Acoustics, Vibration, & Phononics
Presentation Title: Controlling sound and vibration with acoustic metamaterials
Abstract: The field of metamaterials emerged from efforts to use engineered structures, rather than intrinsic material properties, to control electromagnetic waves, including light. That concept has since expanded into almost every area touched by wave and transport phenomena. One of the earliest offshoots was the field of acoustic metamaterials, which offers the possibility of manipulating and controlling acoustic and elastic waves in ways that are challenging or impossible with conventional materials. In this presentation, I will describe some early examples of metamaterial designs that yield unusual acoustic properties, beginning with our early work on acoustic cloaking. I will then pivot to some of our more recent work, focusing in particular on merging metamaterial design concepts with acoustofluidics, which exploits the forces produced by ultrasonic fields to control microscale particle motion and fluid flow. Our latest research in this area shows that metamaterial structure can deliver acoustic tweezer functionality that is difficult to achieve by other means.
Biography: Steven A. Cummer is currently the William H. Younger Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1997 and spent two years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as a National Research Council postdoctoral research associate before joining Duke. He has written or coauthored more than 300 papers in refereed journals, and he is a Fellow of both the IEEE and the American Geophysical Union. He is a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, and he received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2001. He and his research group led some of the earliest work on acoustic and electromagnetic metamaterials and potential applications, including transformation acoustics and cloaking. His current research interests span a variety of theoretical and experimental topics in engineered materials and metamaterials for controlling acoustic and electromagnetic wave propagation, and also in geophysical remote sensing with a focus on lightning and atmospheric electricity.