(1. Key Laboratory of Underwater Acoustic Communication and Marine Information Technology of the Ministry of Education, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China ) (2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA) (3. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China) (4. Department of physics, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212000, China)
Acoustic metamaterials have been widely studied in the air, which can realize negative refraction, acoustic stealth, beam control and super-resolution imaging through the study of acoustic negative parameters. The good application of acoustic metamaterials in the air has led more researchers to focus on the study of underwater acoustic metamaterials. Underwater research involves the effects of fluid-solid coupling and mode conversion, which will be more complex. Underwater research is the mainly faced with problems such as large scale, poor low frequency performance and inresistance to hydrostatic pressure. To solve these problems, researchers have done a lot of advance work. This article presents a comprehensive overview of development of underwater acoustic metamaterials.A series of optimization measures of classical local resonant underwater acoustic metamaterials are to explore the realization of broadband and low frequency underwater sound absorption. Acoustic diode function of superlattice and supersurface composite structures plays an important role in noise control, acoustic communication and target detection. The emerging applications of underwater acoustic metamaterials including underwater acoustic invisibility cloak and underwater acoustic prism are also discussed. Therefore, acoustic metamaterials exhibit great potential in underwater research.