Separating, purifying and decoding elastic waves by mimicking a cochlea on a thin plate

A human cochlea is capable of continuously separating and amplifying sound of different frequencies to specific positions from 20 to 20,000 Hz, which makes it a high-resolution living sensor. The realization of cochlea-like structure for elastic waves in solids offers a highly desirable functionality on high throughput mechanical energy harvesting and sensing, but remains a challenging topic owing to narrow band and intricate configuration. Here we propose and demonstrate a generic framework of elastic cochlea on a thin plate, enabled by a pair of compact metafence layers. It is experimentally realized to harvest and separate flexural waves in quite a wide frequency range from 5.8 to 21.8 kHz, together with a continuous energy amplification exceeding one magnitude order. An enhanced mode, characterized by a near zero group velocity at a tailored cutoff width, is uncovered to illustrate the filtering and amplification physics. Moreover, complex information demultiplexing and undistorted decoding are further realized by harnessing the high-Q signal sensing and purification. The proposed prototype may stimulate substantial applications on information processing, non-destructive evaluation and other wave regulation scenarios. Cochlea is a high-resolution auditory transduction organ to distinguish sounds in both high sensitivity and broadband working frequency. The authors mimic a cochlea on a plate, which can separate, purify and decode complicated elastic waves in quite a compact way.