A new way of bottling sound waves has been developed by scientists. The researchers used the technique to generate acoustic bottles in the open air. The researches were left elated after bottles successfully bent the paths of sound waves along prescribed convex trajectories.

The movement of sound waves is very similar to light waves, and they travel in a straight line until they are struck by an object. The path can also be bent through reflection, diffraction or refraction.

Scientists have been making efforts for years to find a way to bend the path of sound waves in such a way that super high-resolution imaging can be made possible and new technologies can be developed for use in many other significant applications.

Metamaterials are known to be a good source for serving the purpose of bending sound waves, but there are a lot of limitations as well. This led the scientists to look deeply into sound waves to create a new technique and they ended up creating an acoustic bottle to bend sound waves.

"With our bottle beam technique, we can design and synthesize acoustic bottles that are capable of directing sound waves along paths of desired curvature through homogeneous space without the need of metamaterials or any other highly engineered medium", said Xiang Zhang, director of Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, in a news release.

The researchers believe that the study has opened new doors to access hard-to-reach objects obscured by obstacles, like acoustic imaging and therapeutic ultrasound through inhomogeneous media. Also, it could be used as a platform for using an acoustic bottle as a cloaking device by re-routing sound waves around an object.

These giant acoustic traps could enable researchers to develop new technologies and devices for a plethora of applications in chemistry, materials and biosciences, said Sui Yang, author of the paper describing the method.