Nissan will unveil its new material today at the CES 2020 Las Vegas that is claimed to make car cabins quieter while also boosting energy efficiency. The material called as ‘acoustic meta-material’ is a new lightweight sound insulation material.

Nissan claims that the new material is a combination of a lattice structure and plastic film controls air vibrations to limit the transmission of wide frequency band noise (500-1200 hertz), such as road and engine noise. Currently, most materials used to isolate this frequency band consist mainly of heavy rubber board.

Nissan claims that its new acoustic meta-material weighs one-fourth as much as these while providing the same degree of sound isolation. Due to its simple structure, the material’s cost competitiveness in terms of mass production is said to be almost the same or possibly better than the current materials. Therefore, the material can also be applied to vehicles where the use of sound insulation materials is currently limited due to cost or weight.

In 2008, meta-material was used in high-sensitivity antennas used for electromagnetic wave research. Nissan claims that it extended the applicability of meta-material technology to include sound waves, leading to the successful invention of acoustic meta-material.