Wave scattering simulation unlocks potential metamaterials

A new software package developed by researchers at Macquarie University can accurately model the way waves—sound, water or light—are scattered when they meet complex configurations of particles.

This will vastly improve the ability to rapidly design metamaterials—exciting artificial materials used to amplify, block or deflect waves.

The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A on 19 June 2024, demonstrated the use of TMATSOLVER—a multipole-based tool that models interactions between waves and particles of various shapes and properties.

The TMATSOLVER software makes it very easy to simulate arrangements of up to several hundred scatterers, even when they have complex shapes.

Lead author Dr. Stuart Hawkins from Macquarie University's Department of Mathematics and Statistics says the software uses the transition matrix (T-matrix)—a grid of numbers that fully describes how a certain object scatters waves.

"The T-matrix has been used since the 1960s, but we've made a big step forward in accurately computing the T-matrix for particles much larger than the wavelength, and with complex shapes," says Dr. Hawkins.

"Using TMATSOLVER, we have been able to model configurations of particles that could previously not be addressed."

Dr. Hawkins worked with other mathematicians from the University of Adelaide, as well as the University of Manchester and Imperial College London, both in the UK, and from the University of Augsburg and University of Bonn, both in Germany.

"It was fantastic to work on this project and incorporate the TMATSOLVER software into my research on metamaterials," says Dr. Luke Bennetts, a researcher at the University of Adelaide and co-author of the article.

"It meant I could avoid the bottleneck of producing numerical computations to test metamaterial theories and allowed me to easily generalize my test cases to far more complicated geometries."
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