Abstract
Metamaterials enable precise tailoring of light–matter interactions at the subwavelength scale, permitting access to the full range of electromagnetic responses encoded in Maxwell’s equations and operating across a huge swath of the electromagnetic spectrum. These salient features have, during the past two decades, fuelled fundamental metamaterials research which, in turn, has unveiled an impressive assemblage of potential applications. Imaging is at the forefront of these developments, leveraging the ability of metamaterials to achieve arbitrary, specific and tunable scattering responses that are poised for integration with a host of materials and devices. We review the impact of metamaterials and metasurface on imaging science and technology from microwave to optical frequencies. Our focus is on metamaterial-based imaging components and the associated imaging modalities that benefit from these advances.
Key points
-
Metamaterials are 2D or 3D structures comprising subwavelength metallic or dielectric pixels that enable precision tailoring of light–matter interactions.
-
A host of functional imaging components including lenses, polarizers, modulators and detectors have been realized using metamaterials as stand-alone structures and through integration with numerous materials and devices.
-
Metamaterials enable new operational modalities, including single-pixel imaging and leaky wave aperture transceivers for component-free imaging.
-
Broadly, metamaterials serve as an intuitive and unifying design paradigm spanning from radiofrequency to visible wavelengths, taking advantage of advances in electromagnetic simulations and nanofabrication to achieve unprecedented control of light.
-
Metamaterials can be dynamically tuned, leading to on-demand optical components that could play an important role in future imaging technologies such as dynamic holography.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$99.00 per year
only $8.25 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Zheludev, N. I. & Kivshar, Y. S. From metamaterials to metadevices. Nat. Mater. 11, 917–924 (2012).
Stav, T. et al. Quantum entanglement of the spin and orbital angular momentum of photons using metamaterials. Science 361, 1101–1104 (2018).
Zagoskin, A. M., Felbacq, D. & Rousseau, E. Quantum metamaterials in the microwave and optical ranges. EPJ Quantum Technol. 3, 2 (2016).
Wiltshire, M. C. K. Microstructured magnetic materials for RF flux guides in magnetic resonance imaging. Science 291, 849–851 (2001).
Kundtz, N. & Smith, D. R. Extreme-angle broadband metamaterial lens. Nat. Mater. 9, 129–132 (2009).
Wang, S. et al. A broadband achromatic metalens in the visible. Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 227–232 (2018).
Chang, C.-C. et al. Broadband linear-to-circular polarization conversion enabled by birefringent off-resonance reflective metasurfaces. Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 237401 (2019).
Chen, H.-T. et al. Active terahertz metamaterial devices. Nature 444, 597–600 (2006).
Hunt, J. et al. Metamaterial apertures for computational imaging. Science 339, 310–313 (2013).
Huang, L., Zhang, S. & Zentgraf, T. Metasurface holography: from fundamentals to applications. Nanophotonics 7, 1169–1190 (2018).
Holloway, C. L. et al. An overview of the theory and applications of metasurfaces: the two-dimensional equivalents of metamaterials. IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag. 54, 10–35 (2012).
Genevet, P., Capasso, F., Aieta, F., Khorasaninejad, M. & Devlin, R. Recent advances in planar optics: from plasmonic to dielectric metasurfaces. Optica 4, 139 (2017).
Schurig, D., Mock, J. J. & Smith, D. R. Electric-field-coupled resonators for negative permittivity metamaterials. Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 041109 (2006).
Padilla, W. J. et al. Electrically resonant terahertz metamaterials: theoretical and experimental investigations. Phys. Rev. B 75, 041102 (2007).
Schuller, J. A., Zia, R., Taubner, T. & Brongersma, M. L. Dielectric metamaterials based on electric and magnetic resonances of silicon carbide particles. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 107401 (2007).
Jahani, S. & Jacob, Z. All-dielectric metamaterials. Nat. Nanotechnol. 11, 23–36 (2016).
Yu, N. & Capasso, F. Flat optics with designer metasurfaces. Nat. Mater. 13, 139–150 (2014).
Smith, D., Padilla, W., Vier, D., Nemat-Nasser, S. & Schultz, S. Composite medium with simultaneously negative permeability and permittivity. Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 4184 (2000).
Smith, D. R., Vier, D. C., Koschny, T. & Soukoulis, C. M. Electromagnetic parameter retrieval from inhomogeneous metamaterials. Phys. Rev. E 71, 36617 (2005).
Greegor, R. et al. Simulation and testing of a graded negative index of refraction lens. Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 091114 (2005). Demonstration of metamaterial gradient index lens.
Smith, D. R., Mock, J. J., Starr, A. & Schurig, D. Gradient index metamaterials. Phys. Rev. E 71, 036609 (2005).
Pendry, J. B. Controlling electromagnetic fields. Science 312, 1780–1782 (2006).
Leonhardt, U. Optical conformal mapping. Science 312, 1777–1780 (2006).
Schurig, D. et al. Metamaterial electromagnetic cloak at microwave frequencies. Science 314, 977–980 (2006).
Rahm, M., Li, J.-S. & Padilla, W. J. Thz wave modulators: a brief review on different modulation techniques. J. Infrared Millim. Terahertz Waves 34, 1–27 (2013).
Stratton, J. Electromagnetic Theory (IEEE, 2007).
Mo, T. C., Papas, C. H. & Baum, C. E. General scaling method for electromagnetic fields with application to a matching problem. J. Math. Phys. 14, 479–483 (1973).
Zhao, X., Duan, G., Wu, K., Anderson, S. W. & Zhang, X. Intelligent metamaterials based on nonlinearity for magnetic resonance imaging. Adv. Mater. 31, 1905461 (2019).
Gollub, J. N. et al. Large metasurface aperture for millimeter wave computational imaging at the human-scale. Sci. Rep. 7, 42650 (2017).
Escorcia, I., Grant, J., Gough, J. & Cumming, D. R. S. Uncooled CMOS terahertz imager using a metamaterial absorber and pn diode. Opt. Lett. 41, 3261 (2016).
Suen, J. Y. et al. Multifunctional metamaterial pyroelectric infrared detectors. Optica 4, 276 (2017). Demonstration of a fully integrated metamaterial detector.
Ye, W. et al. Spin and wavelength multiplexed nonlinear metasurface holography. Nat. Commun. 7, 11930 (2016).
Lalanne, P. & Chavel, P. Metalenses at visible wavelengths: past, present, perspectives. Laser Photonics Rev. 11, 1600295 (2017).
Lee, D., Gwak, J., Badloe, T., Palomba, S. & Rho, J. Metasurfaces-based imaging and applications: from miniaturized optical components to functional imaging platforms. Nanoscale Adv. 2, 605–625 (2020).
Forbes, A., de Oliveira, M. & Dennis, M. R. Structured light. Nat. Photonics 15, 253–262 (2021).
Smirnova, D., Leykam, D., Chong, Y. & Kivshar, Y. Nonlinear topological photonics. Appl. Phys. Rev. 7, 021306 (2020).
Capolino, F. Theory and Phenomena of Metamaterials (CRC, 2009).
Simovski, C An Introduction to Metamaterials and Nanophotonics (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2020).
Engheta, N. Metamaterials: Physics and Engineering Explorations (Wiley-Interscience, 2006).
Padilla, W., Basov, D. & Smith, D. Negative refractive index metamaterials. Mater. Today 9, 28–35 (2006).
Ming, X., Liu, X., Sun, L. & Padilla, W. J. Degenerate critical coupling in all-dielectric metasurface absorbers. Opt. Express 25, 24658 (2017).
Sautter, J. et al. Active tuning of all-dielectric metasurfaces. ACS Nano 9, 4308–4315 (2015).
Kildishev, A. V., Boltasseva, A. & Shalaev, V. M. Planar photonics with metasurfaces. Science 339, 1232009 (2013).
Chen, H.-T., Taylor, A. J. & Yu, N. A review of metasurfaces: physics and applications. Rep. Prog. Phys. 79, 076401 (2016).
Yu, N. et al. Light propagation with phase discontinuities: generalized laws of reflection and refraction. Science 334, 333–337 (2011).
Pfeiffer, C. & Grbic, A. Metamaterial Huygens’ surfaces: tailoring wave fronts with reflectionless sheets. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 197401 (2013).
Decker, M. et al. High-efficiency dielectric Huygens’ surfaces. Adv. Opt. Mater. 3, 813–820 (2015).
Chen, W. T. et al. A broadband achromatic metalens for focusing and imaging in the visible. Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 220–226 (2018).
Paniagua-Domínguez, R. et al. A metalens with a near-unity numerical aperture. Nano Lett. 18, 2124–2132 (2018).
Lipworth, G. et al. Metamaterial apertures for coherent computational imaging on the physical layer. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 30, 1603–1612 (2013).
Li, L. et al. Machine-learning reprogrammable metasurface imager. Nat. Commun. 10, 1082 (2019).
Watts, C. M. et al. Terahertz compressive imaging with metamaterial spatial light modulators. Nat. Photonics 8, 605–609 (2014). Experimental study showing single pixel imaging with a metamaterial spatial light modulator.
Zeng, B. et al. Hybrid graphene metasurfaces for high-speed mid-infrared light modulation and single-pixel imaging. Light Sci. Appl. 7, 51 (2018).
Golay, M. J. E. Multi-slit spectrometry. J. Opt. Soc. Am. 39, 437–444 (1949).
Dicke, R. H. Scatter-hole cameras for X-rays and gamma rays. Astrophys. J. 153, L101 (1968).
Brady, D. J. (ed.) in Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy 11–53 (Wiley, 2008).
Yao, P. et al. Ultrahigh Purcell factors and Lamb shifts in slow-light metamaterial waveguides. Phys. Rev. B 80, 195106 (2009).
Jacob, Z., Smolyaninov, I. I. & Narimanov, E. E. Broadband Purcell effect: radiative decay engineering with metamaterials. Appl. Phys. Lett. 100, 181105 (2012).
Iorsh, I., Poddubny, A., Orlov, A., Belov, P. & Kivshar, Y. S. Spontaneous emission enhancement in metal–dielectric metamaterials. Phys. Lett. A 376, 185–187 (2012).
Lu, D., Kan, J. J., Fullerton, E. E. & Liu, Z. Enhancing spontaneous emission rates of molecules using nanopatterned multilayer hyperbolic metamaterials. Nat. Nanotechnol. 9, 48–53 (2014).
Costantini, D. et al. Plasmonic metasurface for directional and frequency-selective thermal emission. Phys. Rev. Appl. 4, 014023 (2015).
Luo, L. et al. Broadband terahertz generation from metamaterials. Nat. Commun. 5, 3055 (2014). Experimental demonstration of a metamaterial source operating at terahertz frequencies.
Yardimci, N. T. & Jarrahi, M. Nanostructure-enhanced photoconductive terahertz emission and detection. Small 14, 1802437 (2018).
Burokur, S. N., Daniel, J. P., Ratajczak, P. & De Lustrac, A. Tunable bilayered metasurface for frequency reconfigurable directive emissions. Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 064101 (2010).
Fong, B. H., Colburn, J. S., Ottusch, J. J., Visher, J. L. & Sievenpiper, D. F. Scalar and tensor holographic artificial impedance surfaces. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 58, 3212–3221 (2010).
TextXBadawe, M. E., Almoneef, T. S. & Ramahi, O. M. A true metasurface antenna. Sci. Rep. 6, 19268 (2016).
Smith, D. R., Yurduseven, O., Mancera, L. P., Bowen, P. & Kundtz, N. B. Analysis of a waveguide-fed metasurface antenna. Phys. Rev. Appl. 8, 054048 (2017).
Huang, L. et al. Three-dimensional optical holography using a plasmonic metasurface. Nat. Commun. 4, 2808 (2013).
Deng, Z.-L., Li, X. & Li, G. Metasurface holography. Synth. Lectures Mater. Opt. 1, 1–76 (2020).
Almeida, E., Bitton, O. & Prior, Y. Nonlinear metamaterials for holography. Nat. Commun. 7, 12533 (2016).
Liu, X., Starr, T., Starr, A. F. & Padilla, W. J. Infrared spatial and frequency selective metamaterial with near-unity absorbance. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 1–4 (2010).
Liu, X. & Padilla, W. J. Reconfigurable room temperature metamaterial infrared emitter. Optica 4, 430 (2017).
Fan, K., Suen, J. Y. & Padilla, W. J. Graphene metamaterial spatial light modulator for infrared single pixel imaging. Opt. Express 25, 25318 (2017).
Chen, Q. & Cumming, D. R. S. High transmission and low color cross-talk plasmonic color filters using triangular-lattice hole arrays in aluminum films. Opt. Express 18, 14056 (2010).
Xu, T., Wu, Y.-K., Luo, X. & Guo, L. J. Plasmonic nanoresonators for high-resolution colour filtering and spectral imaging. Nat. Commun. 1, 159 (2010).
Larouche, S., Tsai, Y. J., Tyler, T., Jokerst, N. M. & Smith, D. R. Infrared metamaterial phase holograms. Nat. Mater. 11, 450–454 (2012).
Malek, S. C., Ee, H.-S. & Agarwal, R. Strain multiplexed metasurface holograms on a stretchable substrate. Nano Lett. 17, 3641–3645 (2017).
Li, L. et al. Electromagnetic reprogrammable coding-metasurface holograms. Nat. Commun. 8, 197 (2017).
Veselago, V. G. The electrodynamics of substances with simultaneously negative values of ε and μ. Soviet Phys. Usp. 10, 509–514 (1968).
Pendry, J. B., Holden, A. J., Stewart, W. J. & Youngs, I. Extremely low frequency plasmons in metallic mesostructures. Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 4773–4776 (1996).
Pendry, J. B., Holden, A. J., Robbins, D. J. & Stewart, W. J. Magnetism from conductors and enhanced nonlinear phenomena. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech. 47, 2075–2084 (1999).
Shelby, R. A. Experimental verification of a negative index of refraction. Science 292, 77–79 (2001).
Pendry, J. B. Negative refraction makes a perfect lens. Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 3966–3969 (2000). Study predicting perfect lens properties possible with negative refractive index metamaterials.
Adams, W., Sadatgol, M. & Güney, D. O. Review of near-field optics and superlenses for sub-diffraction-limited nano-imaging. AIP Adv. 6, 100701 (2016).
Grbic, A. & Eleftheriades, G. V. Overcoming the diffraction limit with a planar left-handed transmission-line lens. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 117403 (2004). Subwavelength focusing with negative index metamaterials.
Fang, N. Sub-diffraction-limited optical imaging with a silver superlens. Science 308, 534–537 (2005). Experimental demonstration of a metamaterial superlens.
Taubner, T., Korobkin, D., Urzhumov, Y., Shvets, G. & Hillenbrand, R. Near-field microscopy through a SiC superlens. Science 313, 1595–1595 (2006).
Lu, D. & Liu, Z. Hyperlenses and metalenses for far-field super-resolution imaging. Nat. Commun. 3, 1205 (2012).
Jacob, Z., Alekseyev, L. V. & Narimanov, E. Optical hyperlens: far-field imaging beyond the diffraction limit. Opt. Express 14, 8247 (2006).
Salandrino, A. & Engheta, N. Far-field subdiffraction optical microscopy using metamaterial crystals: theory and simulations. Phys. Rev. B 74, 075103 (2006).
Maxwell, J. C. The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, Vol. 1 (Dover, 2011).
Luneburg, R. K. Mathematical Theory of Optics (Univ. California Press, 1964).
Wood, R. Physical Optics (Macmillan, 1911).
Marchand, E. Gradient Index Optics (Academic, 1978).
PIERSCIONEK, B. K. Refractive index contours in the human lens. Exp. Eye Res. 64, 887–893 (1997).
Pierscionek, B. K. & Regini, J. W. The gradient index lens of the eye: an opto-biological synchrony. Prog. Retin. Eye Res. 31, 332–349 (2012).
Partridge, J. C. et al. Reflecting optics in the diverticular eye of a deep-sea barreleye fish (Rhynchohyalus natalensis). Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 281, 20133223 (2014).
Rim, S.-B., Catrysse, P. B., Dinyari, R., Huang, K. & Peumans, P. The optical advantages of curved focal plane arrays. Opt. Express 16, 4965 (2008).
Liu, R. et al. Broadband gradient index microwave quasi-optical elements based on non-resonant metamaterials. Opt. Express 17, 21030 (2009).
Driscoll, T. et al. Free-space microwave focusing by a negative-index gradient lens. Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 081101 (2006).
Ebbesen, T. W., Lezec, H. J., Ghaemi, H. F., Thio, T. & Wolff, P. A. Extraordinary optical transmission through sub-wavelength hole arrays. Nature 391, 667–669 (1998).
Yin, L. et al. Subwavelength focusing and guiding of surface plasmons. Nano Lett. 5, 1399–1402 (2005).
Liu, Z. et al. Focusing surface plasmons with a plasmonic lens. Nano Lett. 5, 1726–1729 (2005).
Huang, F. M., Zheludev, N., Chen, Y. & de Abajo, F. J. G. Focusing of light by a nanohole array. Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 091119 (2007).
Shi, H. et al. Beam manipulating by metallic nano-slits with variant widths. Opt. Express 13, 6815 (2005).
Verslegers, L. et al. Planar lenses based on nanoscale slit arrays in a metallic film. Nano Lett. 9, 235–238 (2009).
Sun, Z. & Kim, H. K. Refractive transmission of light and beam shapingwith metallic nano-optic lenses. Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 642–644 (2004).
Collischon, M. et al. Binary blazed reflection gratings. Appl. Opt. 33, 3572 (1994).
Zangwill, A. Modern Electrodynamics (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).
Yu, N. et al. Light propagation with phase discontinuities: generalized laws of reflection and refraction. Science 334, 333–337 (2011).
Khorasaninejad, M. & Capasso, F. Metalenses: versatile multifunctional photonic components. Science 358, eaam8100 (2017).
Staude, I. & Schilling, J. Metamaterial-inspired silicon nanophotonics. Nat. Photonics 11, 274–284 (2017).
Kamali, S. M., Arbabi, E., Arbabi, A. & Faraon, A. A review of dielectric optical metasurfaces for wavefront control. Nanophotonics 7, 1041–1068 (2018).
Kruk, S. & Kivshar, Y. Functional meta-optics and nanophotonics governed by mie resonances. ACS Photonics 4, 2638–2649 (2017).
Lalanne, P., Astilean, S., Chavel, P., Cambril, E. & Launois, H. Blazed binary subwavelength gratings with efficiencies larger than those of conventional échelette gratings. Opt. Lett. 23, 1081 (1998).
Lalanne, P., Astilean, S., Chavel, P., Cambril, E. & Launois, H. Design and fabrication of blazed binary diffractive elements with sampling periods smaller than the structural cutoff. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 16, 1143 (1999).
Hasman, E., Kleiner, V., Biener, G. & Niv, A. Polarization dependent focusing lens by use of quantized Pancharatnam–Berry phase diffractive optics. Appl. Phys. Lett. 82, 328–330 (2003).
Khorasaninejad, M. et al. Metalenses at visible wavelengths: diffraction-limited focusing and subwavelength resolution imaging. Science 352, 1190–1194 (2016).
Liu, W., Cheng, H., Tian, J. & Chen, S. Diffractive metalens: from fundamentals, practical applications to current trends. Adv. Phys. X 5, 1742584 (2020).
Moon, S.-W., Kim, Y., Yoon, G. & Rho, J. Recent progress on ultrathin metalenses for flat optics. iScience 23, 101877 (2020).
Zou, X. et al. Imaging based on metalenses. PhotoniX 1, 2 (2020).
Chen, W. T., Zhu, A. Y. & Capasso, F. Flat optics with dispersion-engineered metasurfaces. Nat. Rev. Mater. 5, 604–620 (2020).
Banerji, S. et al. Imaging with flat optics: metalenses or diffractive lenses? Optica 6, 805 (2019).
Engelberg, J. & Levy, U. The advantages of metalenses over diffractive lenses. Nat. Commun. 11, 1991 (2020).
Arbabi, A., Horie, Y., Ball, A. J., Bagheri, M. & Faraon, A. Subwavelength-thick lenses with high numerical apertures and large efficiency based on high-contrast transmitarrays. Nat. Commun. 6, 7069 (2015).
Arbabi, E., Arbabi, A., Kamali, S. M., Horie, Y. & Faraon, A. Multiwavelength metasurfaces through spatial multiplexing. Sci. Rep. 6, 32803 (2016).
Pahlevaninezhad, H. et al. Nano-optic endoscope for high-resolution optical coherence tomography in vivo. Nat. Photonics 12, 540–547 (2018).
Yoon, G., Kim, K., Huh, D., Lee, H. & Rho, J. Single-step manufacturing of hierarchical dielectric metalens in the visible. Nat. Commun. 11, 2268 (2020).
Schurig, D., Pendry, J. B. & Smith, D. R. Transformation-designed optical elements. Opt. Express 15, 14772 (2007). Experimental report demonstrating the design of optical components through transformation optics.
Sun, F. et al. Transformation optics: from classic theory and applications to its new branches. Laser Photonics Rev. 11, 1700034 (2017).
Schurig, D. An aberration-free lens with zero F-number. New J. Phys. 10, 115034 (2008).
Landy, N. I., Kundtz, N. & Smith, D. R. Designing three-dimensional transformation optical media using quasiconformal coordinate transformations. Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 193902 (2010).
Zhao, Y.-Y. et al. Three-dimensional Luneburg lens at optical frequencies. Laser Photonics Rev. 10, 665–672 (2016).
Rahm, M. et al. Design of electromagnetic cloaks and concentrators using form-invariant coordinate transformations of Maxwell’s equations. Photonics Nanostruct. Fundamentals Appl. 6, 87–95 (2008).
Roberts, D. A., Rahm, M., Pendry, J. B. & Smith, D. R. Transformation-optical design of sharp waveguide bends and corners. Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 251111 (2008).
Smith, D. R., Urzhumov, Y., Kundtz, N. B. & Landy, N. I. Enhancing imaging systems using transformation optics. Opt. Express 18, 21238 (2010).
Zhang, J., Pendry, J. B. & Luo, Y. Transformation optics from macroscopic to nanoscale regimes: a review. Adv. Photonics 1, 1 (2019).
Chen, H., Chan, C. T. & Sheng, P. Transformation optics and metamaterials. Nat. Mater. 9, 387–396 (2010).
Ginis, V. & Tassin, P. Transformation optics beyond the manipulation of light trajectories. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 373, 20140361 (2015).
McCall, M. et al. Roadmap on transformation optics. J. Opt. 20, 063001 (2018).
Isakov, D., Stevens, C. J., Castles, F. & Grant, P. S. 3D-printed high dielectric contrast gradient index flat lens for a directive antenna with reduced dimensions. Adv. Mater. Technol. 1, 1600072 (2016).
Zhou, F. et al. Additive manufacturing of a 3D terahertz gradient-refractive index lens. Adv. Opt. Mater. 4, 1034–1040 (2016).
Chan, W. L. et al. A spatial light modulator for terahertz beams. Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 213511 (2009).
Chaves, J. Introduction to Nonimaging Optics (CRC, 2016).
Winston, R. Nonimaging Optics (Elsevier, 2005).
Davis, D. S. Multiplexed imaging by means of optically generated Kronecker products: 1. The basic concept. Appl. Opt. 34, 1170 (1995).
Nadell, C. C., Watts, C. M., Montoya, J. A., Krishna, S. & Padilla, W. J. Single pixel quadrature imaging with metamaterials. Adv. Opt. Mater. 4, 66–69 (2015).
Watts, C. M., Nadell, C. C., Montoya, J., Krishna, S. & Padilla, W. J. Frequency-division-multiplexed single-pixel imaging with metamaterials. Optica 3, 133 (2016).
Fan, K., Suen, J., Wu, X. & Padilla, W. J. Graphene metamaterial modulator for free-space thermal radiation. Opt. Express 24, 25189 (2016).
Hand, T. H. & Cummer, S. A. Reconfigurable reflectarray using addressable metamaterials. IEEE Antennas Wirel. Propag. Lett. 9, 70–74 (2010).
Badloe, T., Mun, J. & Rho, J. Metasurfaces-based absorption and reflection control: perfect absorbers and reflectors. J. Nanomater. 2017, 2361042 (2017).
Li, L. et al. Electromagnetic reprogrammable coding-metasurface holograms. Nat. Commun. 8, 197 (2017).
Renzo, M. D. et al. Smart radio environments empowered by reconfigurable AI meta-surfaces: an idea whose time has come. EURASIP J. Wirel. Commun. Netw. 2019, 129 (2019).
Renzo, M. D. et al. Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces vs. relaying: differences, similarities, and performance comparison. IEEE Open J. Commun. Soc. 1, 798–807 (2020).
Liaskos, C. et al. A new wireless communication paradigm through software-controlled metasurfaces. IEEE Commun. Mag. 56, 162–169 (2018).
Cui, T. J., Qi, M. Q., Wan, X., Zhao, J. & Cheng, Q. Coding metamaterials, digital metamaterials and programmable metamaterials. Light Sci. Appl. 3, e218–e218 (2014).
Abadal, S., Cui, T.-J., Low, T. & Georgiou, J. Programmable metamaterials for software-defined electromagnetic control: circuits, systems, and architectures. IEEE J. Emerg. Sel. Topics Circuits Syst. 10, 6–19 (2020).
Li, L. et al. Intelligent metasurface imager and recognizer. Light Sci. Appl. 8, 97 (2019).
Marcuvitz, N. Waveguide Handbook (McGraw-Hill, 1951).
Collin, R. Field Theory of Guided Waves (IEEE, 1991).
Harvey, A. F. Periodic and guiding structures at microwave frequencies. IRE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech. 8, 30–61 (1960).
Jackson, D. R., Caloz, C. & Itoh, T. Leaky-wave antennas. Proc. IEEE 100, 2194–2206 (2012).
Chen, H.-T. et al. Complementary planar terahertz metamaterials. Opt. Express 15, 1084–1095 (2007).
Tao, H. et al. Microwave and terahertz wave sensing with metamaterials. Opt. Express 19, 21620 (2011). Experimental demonstration of a metamaterial bolometric detector.
Niesler, F. B. P., Gansel, J. K., Fischbach, S. & Wegener, M. Metamaterial metal-based bolometers. Appl. Phys. Lett. 100, 203508 (2012).
Szentpáli, B. et al. Thermopile antennas for detection of millimeter waves. Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 133507 (2010).
Sizov, F. Terahertz radiation detectors: the state-of-the-art. Semicond. Sci. Technol. 33, 123001 (2018).
Hui, Y., Gomez-Diaz, J. S., Qian, Z., Alù, A. & Rinaldi, M. Plasmonic piezoelectric nanomechanical resonator for spectrally selective infrared sensing. Nat. Commun. 7, 11249 (2016).
Montoya, J. A., Tian, Z.-B., Krishna, S. & Padilla, W. J. Ultra-thin infrared metamaterial detector for multicolor imaging applications. Opt. Express 25, 23343 (2017).
Li, W. & Valentine, J. Metamaterial perfect absorber based hot electron photodetection. Nano Lett. 14, 3510–3514 (2014).
Benz, A. et al. Resonant metamaterial detectors based on THz quantum-cascade structures. Sci. Rep. 4, 4269 (2014).
Kuznetsov, S. A., Paulish, A. G., Navarro-Cía, M. & Arzhannikov, A. V. Selective pyroelectric detection of millimetre waves using ultra-thin metasurface absorbers. Sci. Rep. 6, 21079 (2016).
Maier, T. & Brueckl, H. Multispectral microbolometers for the midinfrared. Opt. Lett. 35, 3766 (2010).
Stewart, J. W., Vella, J. H., Li, W., Fan, S. & Mikkelsen, M. H. Ultrafast pyroelectric photodetection with on-chip spectral filters. Nat. Mater. 19, 158–162 (2019).
Jung, J.-Y. et al. Infrared broadband metasurface absorber for reducing the thermal mass of a microbolometer. Sci. Rep. 7, 430 (2017).
Stöckmann, F. Photodetectors, their performance and their limitations. Appl. Phys. 7, 1–5 (1975).
Rogalski, A. Infrared and Terahertz Detectors (CRC, 2018).
Landy, N. I., Sajuyigbe, S., Mock, J. J., Smith, D. R. & Padilla, W. J. Perfect metamaterial absorber. Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 207402 (2008).
Freire, M. J., Marques, R. & Jelinek, L. Experimental demonstration of a μ = −1 metamaterial lens for magnetic resonance imaging. Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 231108 (2008). Experimental demonstration of a negative μ metamaterial for MRI.
Haines, K., Neuberger, T., Lanagan, M., Semouchkina, E. & Webb, A. High Q calcium titanate cylindrical dielectric resonators for magnetic resonance microimaging. J. Magn. Reson. 200, 349–353 (2009).
Freire, M. J., Jelinek, L., Marques, R. & Lapine, M. On the applications of metamaterial lenses for magnetic resonance imaging. J. Magn. Reson. 203, 81–90 (2010).
Slobozhanyuk, A. P. et al. Enhancement of magnetic resonance imaging with metasurfaces. Adv. Mater. 28, 1832–1838 (2016).
Zhang, S. et al. Solid-immersion metalenses for infrared focal plane arrays. Appl. Phys. Lett. 113, 111104 (2018).
Wu, P. C. et al. Visible metasurfaces for on-chip polarimetry. ACS Photonics 5, 2568–2573 (2017).
Arbabi, E., Kamali, S. M., Arbabi, A. & Faraon, A. Full-Stokes imaging polarimetry using dielectric metasurfaces. ACS Photonics 5, 3132–3140 (2018).
Li, W. & Valentine, J. G. Harvesting the loss: surface plasmon-based hot electron photodetection. Nanophotonics 6, 177–191 (2017).
Li, W. et al. Circularly polarized light detection with hot electrons in chiral plasmonic metamaterials. Nat. Commun. 6, 8379 (2015).
Lu, F., Lee, J., Jiang, A., Jung, S. & Belkin, M. A. Thermopile detector of light ellipticity. Nat. Commun. 7, 12994 (2016).
Wei, J. et al. Zero-bias mid-infrared graphene photodetectors with bulk photoresponse and calibration-free polarization detection. Nat. Commun. 11, 6404 (2020).
Kuznetsov, S. A., Paulish, A. G., Gelfand, A. V., Lazorskiy, P. A. & Fedorinin, V. N. Bolometric THz-to-IR converter for terahertz imaging. Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 023501 (2011).
Alves, F., Pimental, L., Grbovic, D. & Karunasiri, G. MEMS terahertz-to-infrared band converter using frequency selective planar metamaterial. Sci. Rep. 8, 12466 (2018).
Fan, K., Suen, J. Y., Liu, X. & Padilla, W. J. All-dielectric metasurface absorbers for uncooled terahertz imaging. Optica 4, 601 (2017).
Haldane, F. D. M. & Raghu, S. Possible realization of directional optical waveguides in photonic crystals with broken time-reversal symmetry. Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 013904 (2008).
Lu, L., Joannopoulos, J. D. & Soljačić, M. Topological photonics. Nat. Photonics 8, 821–829 (2014).
Shitrit, N. et al. Spin-optical metamaterial route to spin-controlled photonics. Science 340, 724–726 (2013).
Li, G. et al. Spin-enabled plasmonic metasurfaces for manipulating orbital angular momentum of light. Nano Lett. 13, 4148–4151 (2013).
Karimi, E. et al. Generating optical orbital angular momentum at visible wavelengths using a plasmonic metasurface. Light Sci. Appl. 3, e167 (2014).
Hsu, C. W., Zhen, B., Stone, A. D., Joannopoulos, J. D. & Soljačić, M. Bound states in the continuum. Nat. Rev. Mater. 1, 370–387 (2016).
Kodigala, A. et al. Lasing action from photonic bound states in continuum. Nature 541, 196–199 (2017).
Tao, H. et al. Reconfigurable terahertz metamaterials. Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 13864–13878 (2009).
Liu, M. et al. Terahertz-field-induced insulator-to-metal transition in vanadium dioxide metamaterial. Nature 487, 345–348 (2012).
Zhao, X. et al. Electromechanically tunable metasurface transmission waveplate at terahertz frequencies. Optica 5, 303 (2018).
Lee, J. et al. Ultrafast electrically tunable polaritonic metasurfaces. Adv. Opt. Mater. 2, 1057–1063 (2014).
Shrekenhamer, D., Chen, W.-C. & Padilla, W. J. Liquid crystal tunable metamaterial absorber. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 177403 (2013).
Verre, R. et al. Transition metal dichalcogenide nanodisks as high-index dielectric Mie nanoresonators. Nat. Nanotechnol. 14, 679–683 (2019).
Song, J. C. W. & Gabor, N. M. Electron quantum metamaterials in van der Waals heterostructures. Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 986–993 (2018).
Wang, J. & Jiang, Y. Infrared absorber based on sandwiched two-dimensional black phosphorus metamaterials. Opt. Express 25, 5206 (2017).
Diebold, A. V., Imani, M. F., Sleasman, T. & Smith, D. R. Phaseless coherent and incoherent microwave ghost imaging with dynamic metasurface apertures. Optica 5, 1529 (2018).
Harmuth, H. Sequency Theory: Foundations and Applications (Academic, 1977).
Harwit, M. Hadamard Transform Optics (Academic, 1979).
Edgar, M. P., Gibson, G. M. & Padgett, M. J. Principles and prospects for single-pixel imaging. Nat. Photonics 13, 13–20 (2018).
Swift, R. D., Wattson, R. B., Decker, J. A., Paganetti, R. & Harwit, M. Hadamard transform imager and imaging spectrometer. Appl. Opt. 15, 1595 (1976).
Zhang, Z., Ma, X. & Zhong, J. Single-pixel imaging by means of Fourier spectrum acquisition. Nat. Commun. 6, 6225 (2015).
Wenwen, M. et al. Sparse Fourier single-pixel imaging. Opt. Express 27, 31490 (2019).
Stantchev, R. I. & Pickwell-MacPherson, E. in Terahertz Technology (IntechOpen, 2021).
Takhar, D. et al. in Computational Imaging IV Vol. 6065 (eds Bouman, C. A. et al.) 606509 (SPIE, 2006).
Pitsianis, N. P. et al. in Intelligent Integrated Microsystems Vol. 6232 (eds Athale, R. A. & Zolper, J. C.) 62320A (SPIE, 2006).
Donoho, D. Compressed sensing. IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 52, 1289–1306 (2006).
Candes, E., Romberg, J. & Tao, T. Robust uncertainty principles: exact signal reconstruction from highly incomplete frequency information. IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 52, 489–509 (2006).
Acknowledgements
W.J.P. acknowledges support from the US Department of Energy (DOE) (DESC0014372). R.D.A. acknowledges the DARPA DRINQS programme (grant no. D18AC00014) and ARO Award W911NF-16-1-0361. The authors thank their colleagues and collaborators, in addition to the many students and postdocs who made this research possible.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
The authors contributed equally to all aspects of the article.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Peer review information
Nature Reviews Physics thanks Lingling Huang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this manuscript.
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Glossary
- Mie modes
-
A resonance in a homogeneous sphere that is a solution to Maxwell’s equations and describes the subsequent scattering of an electromagnetic plane wave.
- Hadamard matrix
-
A square matrix with entries that are either +1 or −1, and whose rows are mutually orthogonal.
- Huygens’ principle
-
A concept describing every point on a wavefront as a source of spherical waves.
- Huygens’ surfaces
-
A metasurface used to achieve a specific wavefront using the Huygens principle.
- Transformation optics
-
(TO). A metamaterial design principle using coordinate transformations to specify spatially dependent metamaterial properties.
- Binary phase-shift coding
-
A modulation method used to convey information through use of two different phase states of a carrier wave frequency.
- Hadamard mask
-
A mask pattern that is formed from a row of the Hadamard matrix.
- Babinet metamaterial
-
A metasurface formed using the Babinet principle, which states that the diffraction pattern from an opaque body is identical to that from a hole of the same size and shape except for the overall forward beam intensity.
- Form factor
-
A hardware design aspect that defines and prescribes the size, shape and other physical specifications of components.
- Swiss roll structure
-
A subwavelength structure comprising a conducting sheet coated on both sides with an insulating layer that is rolled up into a cylinder. These elements have a resonant magnetic permeability for magnetic fields along the axis of the cylinder and are primarily used for radiofrequency applications such as MRI.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Padilla, W.J., Averitt, R.D. Imaging with metamaterials. Nat Rev Phys 4, 85–100 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00394-3
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00394-3
This article is cited by
-
Reconfigurable flexible metasurfaces: from fundamentals towards biomedical applications
PhotoniX (2024)
-
A compact circuit-based metasurface for enhancing magnetic resonance imaging
Discover Applied Sciences (2024)
-
Perfect absorber based on symmetric square silicon grating with polarization and angular stability using particle swarm optimization algorithm
Optical and Quantum Electronics (2024)
-
Transmission-type photonic doping for high-efficiency epsilon-near-zero supercoupling
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Ultra-resolution scalable microprinting
Microsystems & Nanoengineering (2023)
