Everyday life involves the three dimensions (3D), along an X, Y and Z axis, or up and down, left and right, and forward and back. But in recent years scientists, like Guoliang Huang, the Huber and Helen Croft Chair in Engineering at the University of Missouri, have explored a "fourth dimension" (4D), or synthetic dimension, as an extension of our current physical reality.
Now, Huang and a team of scientists in the Structured Materials and Dynamics Lab at the MU College of Engineering have successfully created a new synthetic metamaterial with 4D capabilities, including the ability to control energy waves on the surface of a solid material. These waves, called mechanical surface waves, are fundamental to how vibrations travel along the surface of solid materials.
The study, "Smart patterning for topological pumping of elastic surface waves," was published in Science Advances.
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