Nature has given us materials with special properties, such as the reflecting metals we use in mirrors – now artificial structures are going further
How a material affects light falling upon it is dictated in part by its chemical composition, but its internal structure can have an even stronger influence. Silvered mirrors are highly reflecting, but black-and-white photographs also owe their blackness to silver - billions of nanometre-scale spheres of the metal embedded in the film. This dramatic difference arises because the silver spheres are much smaller than the wavelength of light.
Metamaterials extend this concept with artificial structures that might be nanometres across for visible light, or as large as a few millimetres for microwave radiation. Their properties are engineered by manipulating their structure rather than their chemical composition.
The possibilities these materials open up are limited only by our imagination, and not ...