Metamaterials articles from across Nature Portfolio

Bias-free optical metasurfaces with a large non-reciprocal response for free-space radiation are discussed, based on thermo-optic nonlinearities. These ultrathin devices may lead to new approaches for areas ranging from signal processing to protection of high-power laser cavities.

A compact, filter-free, double-layer perovskite single-pixel detector enables simultaneous recognition of overlapping dual-color metasurface images in complex environments.

The authors demonstrate how flexible metasurfaces powered by artificial neural network can dynamically manipulate the EM scattering behavior from an arbitrary surface - an ultimate ambition for many EM stealth and communication problems.

In this work, the authors use a surface plasmonic mechanism to efficiently confine TeraHertz photons inside ultrasmall cavities. These plasmonic-based TeraHertz cavities are shown to operate until the ultimate limit that is allowed fundamentally and at which plasmons start to behave in a nonlocal fashion.

An electrically tunable device that can work as an optical switch, an optical limiter with a tunable limiting threshold and a nonlinear optical isolator with a tunable operating range in the mid-infrared range is realized by combining a gold layer with subwavelength square slits and a layer of VO₂.

Inspired by valley pseudospins in two-dimensional materials, high-quality-factor (high-Q) spin–valley states were created through the photonic Rashba-type spin splitting of a bound state in the continuum. This approach enabled the construction of a coherent and controllable spin-optical laser using monolayer-integrated spin–valley microcavities without requiring magnetic fields or cryogenic temperatures.