It is possible to achieve this in the right circumstances It is possible for sound to travel in an ideal vacuum. Two physicists figured out the conditions that must exist.
Zhuoran Geng and Ilari Maasilta of the University of Jyväskylä in Finland say their findings represent the first rigorous proof of complete acoustic tunneling in a vacuum.
Two things are required to accomplish this. The materials used in piezoelectric devices are able to turn movements into voltages. The objects need to be separated by a gap that’s smaller than the wavelength of the sound you want to send, which will then completely jump – or ‘tunnel’ – across that space.
We knew about acoustic waves tunneling Since the 1960sScientists have only recently begun investigating the phenomenon, so we do not yet have a good understanding of its workings.
Geng and Maasilta worked on that first by Formalisms for the studyBy applying acoustic Tunneling.
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For propagation, A medium is required to transmit soundThe medium through which sound travels. Vibrations cause atoms and molecule to vibrate in a medium, generating sound. The particle is then transferred to an adjacent particle. We can detect these vibrations by using a sensitive membraneIn our ears
A vacuum is the absence of any medium. Sound shouldn’t propagate if there are no particles vibrating.
There are some loopholes. Piezoelectric crystals are an interesting material to study sound in otherwise empty spaces, as they can buzz even when the vacuum is defined.
The materials are made from a variety of different types. How to convert mechanical energy into electric energy, and vice-versa. If you put a mechanical strain on the crystal it will create an electric field. The crystal will also deform if exposed to an electric field. This is known as the inverse piezoelectric effect.
This is where the fun begins. Sound vibrations exert mechanical stress. Geng and Maasilta used zinc oxide crystals as piezoelectrics to convert mechanical stress into an electric field.
If there is a second crystal within range of the first, it can convert the electrical energy back into mechanical energy – et voila, the sound wave has traversed the vacuum. The two crystals need to be separated only by a space no larger than the initial acoustic wavelength.
The effect increases with frequency. If the vacuum gap between the two crystals is set appropriately, even ultrasonic and hypersound frequencies will be able to tunnel through.
This is because the phenomenon is Quantum mechanical effects are analogousThe following are some examples of how to use tunnelingThe results of this research could be used to study quantum information science as well as other fields of physics.
In some cases the effect was small, but there were also situations in which the wave’s full energy jumped across the vacuum without any reflections. Maasilta says.
“As such, the phenomenon could find applications in microelectromechanical components (MEMS, smartphone technology) and in the control of heat.”
The research has appeared in Communications Physics.
