Invisibility has attracted intensive research in various communities, e.g., optics, electromagnetics, acoustics, thermodynamics, dc, etc. However, many experimental demonstrations have only been achieved by virtue of simplified approaches due to the inhomogeneous and extreme parameters imposed by the transformation-optic method, and usually require a challenging realization with metamaterials. In this Letter, we demonstrate a bilayer thermal cloak made of bulk isotropic materials, and it has been validated as an exact cloak. We experimentally verified its ability to maintain the heat front and its heat protection capabilities in a 2D proof-of-concept experiment. The robustness of this scheme is validated in both 2D (including oblique heat front incidence) and 3D configurations. The proposed scheme may open a new avenue to control the diffusive heat flow in ways inconceivable with phonons, and also inspire new alternatives to the functionalities promised by transformation optics.

Thermal camouflage and cloaking can transform an actual heat signature into a pre-controlled one. A viable recipe for controlling and manipulating heat signatures using thermal metamaterials to empower cloaking and camouflage in heat conduction is demonstrated. The thermal signature of the object is thus metamorphosed and perceived as multiple targets with different geometries and compositions, with the original object cloaked.

Invisible cloak has long captivated the popular conjecture and attracted intensive research in various communities of wave dynamics, e.g., optics, electromagnetics, acoustics, etc. However, their inhomogeneous and extreme parameters imposed by transformation-optic method will usually require challenging realization with metamaterials, resulting in narrow bandwidth, loss, polarization-dependence, etc. In this paper, we demonstrate that thermodynamic cloak can be achieved with homogeneous and finite conductivity only employing naturally available materials. It is demonstrated that the thermal localization inside the coating layer can be tuned and controlled robustly by anisotropy, which enables an incomplete cloak to function perfectly. Practical realization of such homogeneous thermal cloak has been suggested by using two naturally occurring conductive materials, which provides an unprecedentedly plausible way to flexibly realize thermal cloak and manipulate heat flow with phonons.

The demand for sophisticated tools and approaches in heat management and control has triggered fast development of emerging fields including conductive thermal metamaterials, nanophononics, far-field and near-field radiative thermal management, etc. In this review, we cast a unified perspective on the control of heat transfer, based on which the related studies can be considered as complementary paradigms toward manipulating physical parameters and realizing unprecedented phenomena in heat transfer using artificial structures, such as thermal conductivity in heat conduction, thermal emissivity in radiation, and properties related to multi-physical effects. The review is divided into three parts that focus on the three main categories of heat flow control, respectively. Thermal conduction and radiation are emphasized in the first and second parts at both macro-and micro-scale. The third part discusses the efforts to actively introduce heat sources or tune the material parameters with multi-physical effects in both conduction and radiation, including works using thermal convection. We conclude the review with challenges in this research topic and new possibilities about topological thermal effects, heat waves, and quantum thermal effects.

The creation of wave-dynamic illusion functionality is of great interests to various scientific communities, which can potentially transform an actual perception into the precontrolled perception, thus empowering unprecedented applications in the advanced-material science, camouflage, cloaking, optical and/or microwave cognition, and defense security, etc.By using the space transformation theory and engineering capability of metamaterials, we propose and realize a functional "ghost" illusion device, which is capable of creating wavedynamic virtual ghost images off the original object's position under the illumination of electromagnetic waves. The scattering signature of the object is thus ghosted and perceived as multiple ghost targets with different geometries and compositions. The ghost-illusion material, being inhomogeneous and anisotropic, was realized by thousands of varying unit cells working at non-resonance. The experimental demonstration of the ghost illusion validates our theory of scattering metamorphosis and opens a novel avenue to the wave-dynamic illusion, cognitive deception, manipulate strange light or matter behaviors, and design novel optical and microwave devices.

Controlling electromagnetic energy is essential for an efficient and sustainable society. A key requirement is concentrating magnetic energy in a desired volume of space in order to either extract the energy to produce work or store it. Metamaterials have opened new possibilities for controlling electromagnetic energy [1,2]. Recently, a superconductor-ferromagnetic metamaterial that allows unprecedented concentration and amplification of magnetic energy, and also its transmission at distance through free space, has been devised theoretically [3]. Here we design and build an actual version of the superconductor-ferromagnetic metamaterial and experimentally confirm these properties. We show that also a ferromagnetic metamaterial, without superconducting parts, can achieve concentration and transmission of energy with only a slight decrease in the performance. Transmission of magnetic energy at a distance by magnetic metamaterials may provide new ways of enhancing wireless power transmission, where efficiency depends critically on the magnetic coupling strength between source and receiver.

By using sub-wavelength resonators, metamaterial absorber shows great potential in many scientific and technical applications due to its perfect absorption characteristics. For most practical applications, the absorption bandwidth is one of the most important performance metrics. In this paper, we demonstrate the design of an ultra-broadband infrared absorber based on metasurface. Compared with the prior work [Opt. Express22(S7), A1713-A1724 (2014)], the proposed absorber shows more than twice the absorption bandwidth. The simulated total absorption exceeds 90% from 7.8 to 12.1 um and the full width at half maximum is 50% (from 7.5 to 12.5 μm), which is achieved by using a single layer of metasurface. Further study demonstrates that the absorption bandwidth can be greatly expanded by using two layers of metasurface, i.e. dual-layered absorber. The total absorption of the dual-layered absorber exceeds 80% from 5.2 to 13.7 um and the full width at half maximum is 95% (from 5.1 to 14.1 μm), much greater than those previously reported for infrared spectrum. The absorption decreases with fluctuations as the incident angle increases but remains quasi-constant up to relatively large angles.

Since the advent of transformation optics and scattering cancelling technology, a plethora of unprecedented metamaterials, especially invisibility cloaks, have been successfully demonstrated in various communities, e.g., optics, acoustics, elastic mechanics, dc electric field, dc magnetic field, and thermotics. A long-held captivation is that transformation-optic metamaterials of anisotropic or noncentrosymmetric geometry (e.g., ellipsoids) commonly come along with parameter approximation/simplification or directional functions. Here, a synthetic paradigm with strictly full parameters and omnidirectionality is reported simultaneously to address this long-held issue for molding heat flow and experimentally demonstrate a series of noncentrosymmetric thermal metadevices. It changes the usual perception that transformation thermotic/dc/acoustic metamaterials are just a direct and simplified derivatives of the transformation-optic counterpart. Instead, the proposed methodology solves an intriguingly important and challenging problem that is not possibly achievable for transformation-optic metamaterials. The approach is rigorous, exact, robust, and yet elegantly facile, which may open a new avenue to manipulating the Laplacian and wave-dynamic fields in ways previously inconceivable.