  Manipulating the property of iso-frequency contour (IFC) will provide a
powerful control for the interaction between light and matter. Importantly,
hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs), a class of artificial anisotropic materials
with hyperbolic IFC have been intensively investigated. Because of the open
dispersion curves, HMMs support propagating high-k modes and possess enhanced
photonic density of states. As a result, HMMs can be utilized to realize
hyper-lens breaking the diffraction limit, meta-cavity laser with subwavelength
scale, high sensitivity sensor, long-range energy transfer and so on. In order
to make it easier for people who are about to enter this burgeoning and rapidly
developing research field, this tutorial article not only introduces the basic
physical properties of HMMs, but also discusses the dispersion manipulation of
HMMs and HMM-based structures such as hypercrystals. The theoretical methods
and experimental platforms are given in this tutorial. Finally, some potential
applications associated with hyperbolic dispersion are also introduced
