ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,272,347, issued on April 8.
"Helical acoustic lens" was invented by Micha Feigin-Almon (Natick, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A meta-material acoustic lens is based on multiple acoustic channels, having a helix shaped path arranged radially around the center. The helix pitch is a function of the helix radius. This changes the effective thickness of the lens as a function of its distance from the center of the lens. This create a phase shift gradient across the lens, which in turn changes the wavefront from one side of the lens to the other. This results with either a focusing lens, when the effective thickness decreases from cente...