Sub-wavelength Resolution of Cracks in Metallic Materials

In recent years, various types of acoustic metamaterials have been proposed with capabilities for overcoming the diffraction limit. However, typically such developments only consider the acoustic regime or imaging in liquid media. In this paper we show the application of a holey structured metamaterial lens for sub-wavelength imaging of defects in a metallic sample, in the ultrasonic regime. Finite Element (FE) simulations are used to study longitudinal wave interaction with ideal cracks in isotropic elastic materials. Holey-structured meta-lenses are then used to transmit the scattered waves. We present a super resolution of 217 with a subwavelength crack in an aluminium sample, which to the best of our knowledge this is the highest resolution achieved in the ultrasonic regime.