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Metamaterials

A stamp of quality

Nature Nanotechnology volume 6, pages 396–397 (2011)Cite this article

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Transfer printing of negative-index metamaterials with areas of tens of square centimetres onto flexible substrates paves the way for practical, low-cost, large-area exotic optics.

A mirage in the desert and the apparent bending of a straw in a glass of water both arise from the passage of light through materials with spatially varying refractive indices. The refractive index sets the speed of light in a particular material, and describes how light changes its direction when passing between materials. During the past decade, the advent of metamaterials — that is, artificial materials with periodic nanoscale structures — has extended our control over refractive index into new regimes, including that of negative values not found in nature, and has enabled remarkable applications such as cloaking1,2. However, illusions such as the bending of straws and cloaking both require control over the refractive index of large amounts of matter.

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Figure 1: Nanotransfer printing of metamaterials.

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  1. Richard D. Averitt is in the Department of Physics, Boston University, 590 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA,

    Richard D. Averitt

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  1. Richard D. Averitt
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Correspondence to Richard D. Averitt.

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Averitt, R. A stamp of quality. Nature Nanotech 6, 396–397 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.109

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.109

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