Acoustic omni meta-atom for decoupled access to all octants of a wave parameter space

The common behaviour of a wave is determined by wave parameters of its medium, which are generally associated with the characteristic oscillations of its corresponding elementary particles. In the context of metamaterials, the decoupled excitation of these fundamental oscillations would provide an ideal platform for top–down and reconfigurable access to the entire constitutive parameter space; however, this has remained as a conceivable problem that must be accomplished, after being pointed out by Pendry. Here by focusing on acoustic metamaterials, we achieve the decoupling of density ρ, modulus B(−1) and bianisotropy ξ, by separating the paths of particle momentum to conform to the characteristic oscillations of each macroscopic wave parameter. Independent access to all octants of wave parameter space (ρ, B(−1), ξ)=(+/−,+/−,+/−) is thus realized using a single platform that we call an omni meta-atom; as a building block that achieves top–down access to the target properties of metamaterials.