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I'll never forget the day I saw the first ultrasound image of my peanut-size son-to-be.
我永遠不會忘記看到自己花生粒大小兒子第一張超聲圖像的那天。
If only the pictures weren't so fuzzy.
要是照片不那么模糊就好了。
Is it a boy or—is that her foot?
這是個胖小子還是女娃的小腳丫?
Now physicists at Nanjing University in China have come up with a method to clean up pictures made from high-pitched acoustic waves.
而現在中國南京大學的物理學家們想出了一個由高頻聲波讓照片變清晰的方法。
Think of a one-way mirror—but for sound.
想想單向鏡，但那只是聲音。
Their system would let the pressure waves that carry sound pass through if they come from the left.
如果從左邊而來，他們的系統會讓攜帶聲音的壓力波通過。
But it reflects waves hitting it from the right.
但它會反映出來自右邊回饋的波。
No known natural material can do this.
沒有任何已知的天然材料能夠做到這一點。
But a metamaterial—a clever arrangement of thin brass plates bent into tiny maze-like shapes—has just the right properties.
但是有一種超材料，巧妙設計彎曲成小迷宮形狀般的的薄黃銅片就具有了上述適合的屬性。
The metamaterial can even be tailored to steer the outgoing sound and to filter out all sounds except those of a particular frequency.
這種超材料甚至可以量身定做,引導發出聲音并過濾掉除特定頻率外所有的聲音。
That's just what you want for a sharp ultrasound picture.
這就是你所需要的清晰超聲圖像。
The work appears in Applied Physics Letters.
這項研究已經在應用物理快報上發表。
The researchers are now building a prototype of their design.
研究人員目前正在構建一種基于他們設計的原型。
Maybe one day, the only thing fuzzy about those first fetal photos will be the way they make you feel inside.
也許有一天, 唯一模糊的胎兒第一張照片將是這些小寶貝在你心里的模樣。
