Customized tranquility：new strategies for noise control via acoustic metamaterials

Noise pollution severely impacts the living environment and human health, but its mitigation has long faced dual challenges rooted in both physical mechanisms and engineering applications. Traditional noise control materials typically rely on their size or mass to manipulate sound waves, which makes it difficult to effectively control low-frequency noise while pursuing lightweight and thin designs. Acoustic metamaterials, by engineering subwavelength artificial structural units, overcome the inherent trade-offs between size/weight and performance in traditional materials, offering a new pathway for efficient low-frequency noise control. Starting from the fundamental requirements of noise control, this paper reviews the current research on acoustic metamaterials in sound absorption, sound insulation, and related fields. It emphasizes their physical mechanisms, typical structures, and unique properties, while also discussing key issues and future directions for the development of this field.