Metamaterials
Metasurfaces to usher in new optical technologies
March 15, 2013 10:25 am | News | Comments
New optical technologies using "metasurfaces" capable of the ultra-efficient control of light are nearing commercialization. According to Alexander Kildishev, an electrical engineer and professor at Purdue University, the metasurfaces could make possible "planar photonics" devices and optical switches small enough to be integrated into computer chips for information processing and telecommunication
Theory, practice key to optimized broadband, low-loss optical metamaterials
March 28, 2013 7:49 pm | by A'ndrea Elyse Messer, Penn State | News | Comments
Metamaterials are manufactured materials that derive their unusual properties from...
Metamaterials let researchers observe giant photonic spin Hall effect
March 21, 2013 2:50 pm | News | Comments
Engineering a unique two-dimensional sheet of gold nanoantennas, researchers at...
Metamaterial with adjustable optical properties
March 19, 2013 10:42 am | News | Comments
Photonic metamaterials are artificial materials created by precise and extremely fine...
Scientists build record-setting metamaterial flat lens
May 24, 2013 10:20 am | News | CommentsFor the first time, scientists working NIST have demonstrated a new type of lens that bends and focuses ultraviolet light in a way that it can create ghostly, 3D images of objects that float in free space. The easy-to-build lens could lead to improved photolithography, nanoscale manipulation and manufacturing, and even high-resolution 3D imaging, as well as a number of as-yet-unimagined applications in a diverse range of fields.
Researchers design nanometer-scale material that can speed up, squeeze light
April 29, 2013 10:03 am | News | CommentsIn a process comparable to squeezing an elephant through a pinhole, researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have designed a way to engineer atoms capable of funneling light through ultrasmall channels. Their research is the latest in a series of recent findings related to how light and matter interact at the atomic scale.
Metascreen forms ultrathin invisibility cloak
March 26, 2013 8:35 am | News | CommentsUp until now, the invisibility cloaks put forward by scientists have been fairly bulky contraptions—an obvious flaw for those interested in Harry Potter-style applications. However, researchers from the U.S. have now developed a cloak that is just micrometers thick and can hide 3D objects from microwaves in their natural environment, in all directions and from all of the observers’ positions.
Metamaterials provide active control of slow-light devices
February 13, 2013 10:49 am | News | CommentsWireless communications and optical computing could soon get a significant boost in speed, thanks to “slow light” and specialized metamaterials through which it travels. Researchers have made the first demonstration of rapidly switching on and off “slow light” in specially designed materials at room temperature. This work opens the possibility to design novel, chip-scale, ultrafast devices for applications in terahertz wireless communications and all-optical computing.
Tiny tools help advance medical discoveries
January 8, 2013 7:48 am | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsTo understand the progression of complex diseases such as cancer, scientists have had to tease out the interactions between cells at progressively finer scales—from the behavior of a single tumor cell in the body on down to the activity of that cell’s inner machinery. To foster such discoveries, mechanical engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are designing tools to image and analyze cellular dynamics at the micro- and nanoscale.
Reducing electrons' effective mass to nearly zero
December 18, 2012 3:39 pm | News | CommentsThe field of metamaterials involves augmenting materials with specially designed patterns, enabling those materials to manipulate electromagnetic waves and fields in previously impossible ways. Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have come up with a theory for moving this phenomenon onto the quantum scale, laying out blueprints for materials where electrons have nearly zero effective mass.
Silver nanocubes make super light absorbers
December 7, 2012 7:50 am | News | CommentsMicroscopic metallic cubes, developed by Duke University, could unleash the enormous potential of metamaterials to absorb light, leading to more efficient and cost-effective large-area absorbers for sensor applications or energy-harvesting devices.
Organic metamaterial flows like liquid
December 5, 2012 12:21 pm | News | CommentsA bit reminiscent of the Terminator T-1000, a new material created by Cornell University researchers is so soft that it can flow like a liquid and then, strangely, return to its original shape. Rather than liquid metal, it is a hydrogel, a mesh of organic molecules with many small empty spaces that can absorb water like a sponge. It qualifies as a "metamaterial" with properties not found in nature and may be the first organic metamaterial with mechanical metaproperties.
Metamaterials and transformation optics control light on a microchip
November 26, 2012 9:40 am | News | CommentsUsing a combination metamaterials and transformation optics, engineers at Penn State University have developed designs for miniaturized optical devices that can be used in chip-based optical integrated circuits, the equivalent of the integrated electronic circuits that make possible computers and cell phones. Controlling light on a microchip could, in the short term, improve optical communications and allow sensing of any substance that interacts with electromagnetic waves.
New metamaterial lens focuses radio waves
November 14, 2012 7:44 am | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsResearchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have fabricated a 3D, lightweight metamaterial lens that focuses radio waves with extreme precision. The concave lens exhibits a property called negative refraction, bending electromagnetic waves in exactly the opposite sense from which a normal concave lens would work.
Making a better invisibility cloak
November 12, 2012 7:53 am | News | CommentsThe first functional "cloaking" device reported by Duke University electrical engineers in 2006 worked like a charm, but it wasn't perfect. Now a member of that laboratory has developed a new design that ties up one of the major loose ends from the original device. These new findings could be important in transforming how light or other waves can be controlled or transmitted.
Riding herd on photons
August 6, 2012 5:51 am | by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office | News | CommentsIn waveguides, such as those used in fiber optics, light has a tendency to reflect backwards, interfering with transmission of data. Today’s optical networks keep light from reflecting backward with devices called isolators. To help enable computer chips that operate with light, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have invented a new metamaterial prevents electromagnetic waves from reflecting backward.
Reluctant electrons enable 'extraordinarily strong' negative refraction
August 2, 2012 5:17 am | News | CommentsOver the past two decades, scientists have managed to create artificial materials whose refractive indices are negative: light is bent in the "wrong" direction. These materials might have several technological applications, including cloaking. Recently, a new technique for creating these metamaterials using kinetic inductance shows promise for dramatic miniaturization of future metamaterials systems.
First 3D nanoscale optical cavities from metamaterials
June 27, 2012 3:49 am | News | CommentsLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have created the world's smallest 3D optical cavities with the potential to generate the world's most intense nanolaser beams. By alternating super-thin multiple layers of silver and germanium, the researchers fabricated an "indefinite metamaterial" from which they created their 3D optical cavities.
Mathematicians conjure matter waves inside an invisible hat
May 30, 2012 5:13 am | by Hannah Hickey | News | CommentsOver the past five years mathematicians and other scientists have been working on devices that enable invisibility cloaks. Recent work involving a University of Washington mathematician has resulted in a new solution: an amplifier that boosts light, sound, or other waves while hiding them inside an invisible container. Its developers are calling it Schrödinger's hat.
Metamaterials, quantum dots show promise for new technologies
May 24, 2012 10:02 am | News | CommentsResearchers are edging toward the creation of new optical technologies using "nanostructured metamaterials" capable of ultra-efficient transmission of light, with potential applications including advanced solar cells and quantum computing.
Mystifying materials
May 24, 2012 5:39 am | News | CommentsIt's not magic, but new materials designed by two Northwestern University researchers seem to exhibit magical properties. Some contract when they should expand, and others expand when they should contract.
New metamaterial practical for optical advances
May 15, 2012 4:30 am | News | CommentsResearchers have taken a step toward overcoming a key obstacle in commercializing "hyperbolic metamaterials," structures that could bring optical advances including ultrapowerful microscopes, computers, and solar cells. The researchers have shown how to create the metamaterials without the traditional silver or gold previously required.
Stable crystal is a new material class: The metafluid
May 8, 2012 11:28 am | News | CommentsPentamodes, proposed in 1995 by Graeme Milton and Andrej Cherkaev, have until now been purely theoretical. They exist when the mechanical behavior of materials such as gold or water is expressed in terms of compression and shear parameters. Materials experts in Germany have, for the first time, built such a pentamode material, and it’s called a metafluid for a specific reason.
Scientists seek new conductors for metamaterials
April 24, 2012 5:59 am | News | CommentsScientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have designed a method to evaluate different conductors for use in metamaterial structures, which are engineered to exhibit properties not possible in natural materials.
Exotic materials may permanently alter optics
March 18, 2012 3:53 pm | News | CommentsIn a recent series of experiments, a Duke University team demonstrated that a metamaterial construct they developed could create holograms—like the images seen on credit or bank cards—in the infrared range of light, something that has not been done before.
Metamaterials may advance with new femtosecond laser technique
March 8, 2012 7:56 am | News | CommentsResearchers in applied physics have cleared an important hurdle in the development of advanced materials, called metamaterials, that bend light in unusual ways. Working at a scale applicable to infrared light, the Harvard University team has used extremely short and powerful laser pulses to create 3D patterns of tiny silver dots within a material. Those suspended metal dots are essential for building futuristic devices like invisibility cloaks.
Exotic material boosts electromagnetism safely
February 29, 2012 6:26 am | News | CommentsBy using exotic man-made materials, scientists from Duke University and Boston College believe they can greatly enhance the forces of electromagnetism (EM), one of the four fundamental forces of nature, without harming living beings or damaging electrical equipment.
Researchers build first physical 'metatronic' circuit
February 23, 2012 8:17 am | News | CommentsThe technological world of the 21st century owes a tremendous amount to advances in electrical engineering, specifically, the ability to finely control the flow of electrical charges using increasingly small and complicated circuits. And while those electrical advances continue to race ahead, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are pushing circuitry forward in a different way, by replacing electricity with light.
Scientists create first free-standing 3D cloak
January 26, 2012 3:20 am | News | CommentsResearchers in the United States, for the first time, cloaked a 3D object standing in free space, bringing the much-talked-about invisibility cloak one step closer to reality. Whilst previous studies have either been theoretical in nature or limited to the cloaking of 2D objects, this study shows how ordinary objects can be cloaked in their natural environment in all directions and from all of an observer's positions.
