Tunable acoustic filters assisted by coupling vibrations of a flexible Helmholtz resonator and a waveguide

We report a coupling structure to realize tunable sound transmission in various frequency ranges. The structure, consisting of a flexible Helmholtz resonator and a waveguide, excites three main coupling modes that generate bandpass and bandstop filter effects. Importantly, the coupling modes are controlled by membrane tension or the device structure. These properties show that a tunable filter can be realized simply by regulating the coupling vibration states by changing the membrane tension with different electromagnetic forces. In applications, the flexible Helmholtz resonator operating at its multiple resonances can be fabricated on the sub-wavelength scale, making it easy to achieve acoustic devices with small size for noise suppression or sound control at low frequencies.