Metamaterial
Engineered materials with properties from structure, not composition.
A metamaterial is an engineered material whose properties arise not from the chemical composition of its base substances, but from their deliberately designed internal structure. These properties are often rare or absent in naturally occurring materials. Metamaterials are typically fashioned from multiple materials, such as metals and plastics, and arranged in repeating patterns at scales smaller than the wavelengths of the phenomena they influence. Their shape, geometry, size, orientation, and arrangement give them the ability to manipulate electromagnetic, acoustic, or seismic waves by blocking, absorbing, enhancing, or bending waves, achieving benefits beyond what is possible with conventional materials.
- field
- Interdisciplinary (electrical engineering, electromagnetics, classical optics, solid state physics, microwave and antenna engineering, optoelectronics, material sciences, nanoscience, semiconductor en
- known_for
- Manipulating electromagnetic, acoustic, or seismic waves; negative index of refraction; potential for super-lenses and invisibility
Lore & Background
Explorations of artificial materials for manipulating electromagnetic waves began at the end of the 19th century. In the late 1940s, Winston E. Kock from AT&T Bell Laboratories developed materials with similar characteristics. In the 1950s and 1960s, artificial dielectrics were studied for lightweight microwave antennas, and microwave radar absorbers were researched in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1995, John M. Smith et al. reported the experimental demonstration of functioning electromagnetic metamaterials by stacking split-ring resonators and thin wire structures. Negative index of refraction in the optical range was first demonstrated by Vladimir Shalaev et al.
Reader's Guide
Metamaterials represent a paradigm shift in material science, where function is derived from structure rather than chemistry. Their ability to manipulate electromagnetic, acoustic, and seismic waves—blocking, absorbing, enhancing, or bending them—opens possibilities impossible with conventional materials. Potential applications span sports equipment, optical filters, medical devices, remote aerospace applications, sensor detection, infrastructure monitoring, smart solar power management, lasers, crowd control, radomes, high-frequency battlefield communication, lenses for high-gain antennas, improving ultrasonic sensors, and even shielding structures from earthquakes. Metamaterials offer the potential to create super-lenses, and a form of invisibility was demonstrated using gradient-index materials. Recent developments also show promise for optical computing, with metamaterial-based systems theoretically able to perform certain tasks more efficiently than conventional computing. The field is inherently interdisciplinary, involving electrical engineering, electromagnetics, classical optics, solid state physics, microwave and antenna engineering, optoelectronics, material sciences, nanoscience, and semiconductor engineering.
Did You Know?
- The word 'metamaterial' comes from the Greek 'meta' (meaning 'beyond' or 'after') and the Latin 'materia' (meaning 'matter' or 'material').
More in Materials And States Of Matter 1-22
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