Researchers reduce noise using super lightweight crystals

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) have, according to a press release,  found a “particularly elegant solution” to absorb vibrations. A team from the Department for Laboratory Acoustics / Noise Control in Dübendorf increased the atomic crystal structures by 100 million times and is now reproducing these for industrial production. Thereafter, the researchers are able to add in extra characteristics: small, rotating plates were integrated and connected with one another, for example. When they are alternately linked in their direction of rotation, this ordering allows a broad range of vibrations to be absorbed. When they all turn in the same direction, the crystals transmit the sound further on. These research results have now been published in the most recent edition of the trade journal “Nature Communications”.

Such transparent phononic crystals allow stable, rigid construction materials to be manufactured, which deliver top quality soundproofing characteristics and which are up to 100-times lighter than other phononic insulators.

In this way, they could be used in Plexiglas windows: when the plates are integrated and attuned to the frequency of human voices, other people can certainly be seen and heard in muted fashion, but their words are unable to be understood. This opens up interesting possibilities, in particular for architects and interior designers, in terms of noise-reducing solutions.