Physicists explain how sound can travel through a vacuum

The iconic movie Outside of earth He once claimed, “In space, no one can hear you scream.” However, physicists Zhuoran Geng and Ilari Maasilta of the Center for Nanoscience at Jyväskylä University, Finland, disagree. Their recent research suggests that, under specific conditions, teleportation can indeed Sound forcefully through the void.

Their findings, which were recently published in the journal Communication Physics, revealing that in some scenarios, sound waves can “pass” through a vacuum between two solid bodies, provided these bodies are piezoelectric. These particular materials generate an electrical response when exposed to sound waves or vibrations. Since the electric field can exist in a vacuum, it can effectively carry away these sound waves.

The requirement is that the size of the gap is less than the wavelength of the sound wave. This effect works not only in the sound frequency range (Hz-kilohertz), but also in ultrasonic (MHz) and hypersonic (GHz) frequencies, as long as the vacuum gap is reduced with increasing frequencies.

“In most cases the effect is negligible, but we have also found situations where all wave energy jumps through a vacuum at 100% efficiency, without any reflection. As such, the phenomenon can find applications in microelectromechanical components (MEMS, smartphone technology) and in control in the heat,” explains Professor Ilari Maselta of the Center for Nanoscience at the University of Jyväskylä.

The study was funded by the Academy of Finland and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.