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Photonics

Metamaterials add an extra dimension

Nature Materials volume 7, pages 7–8 (2008)Cite this article

In a major departure from their humble origins as ultrathin monolayers, optical metamaterials have now advanced to three-dimensional bulk media exhibiting both electric and magnetic activity.

In their quest to design such optical properties, the ancients used a trial-and-error-based approach to achieve the desired colour effect — it was the nineteenth century before a systematic experimental study was made, by Michael Faraday, of the optical properties of colloidal gold1. Satisfactory quantitative understanding of the resonant scattering and absorption of light by metallic nanoparticles that is responsible for these exotic colours was only achieved after the pioneering theoretical work of Gustav Mie2. However, full control over key aspects of light propagation in a medium at optical frequencies has so far been missing. On page 31 of this issue, Na Liu and her colleagues now present a nanofabrication technique that enables the realization of fully three-dimensional artificial 'metamaterials' at optical frequencies close to the visible region3.

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Figure 1: Evolution of three-dimensional metamaterials:

Image left: © The trustees of the British Museum. Image centre: © 2004 AAAS

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  1. Gennady Shvets is in the Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, Texas 78712, USA. gena@physics.utexas.edu,

    Gennady Shvets

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  1. Gennady Shvets
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Shvets, G. Metamaterials add an extra dimension. Nature Mater 7, 7–8 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2088

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2088

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