Acoustic Luneburg lens using orifice-type metamaterial unit cells

A two-dimensional acoustic Luneburg lens that can be easily expanded into a three-dimensional sphere is fabricated. The required spatial distribution of the refractive index for this Luneburg lens is realized using the characteristics of orifice-type metamaterial unit cells. Typical characteristics of the resulting acoustic Luneburg lens, such as its aberration-free performance and capability for antipodal focusing of the lens for the incident plane waves, are investigated through experiments and simulations with the attenuation loss at frequencies that satisfy the homogeneous medium condition of the metamaterial. With the designed metamaterial, we achieved the minimum spot that lies within the classical diffraction limit at the focal point.