Metamaterials: From fundamental physics to intelligent design

Abstract

Metamaterials are artificial structures with the ability to efficiently control light‐field, attracting intensive attention in the past few decades. People have studied the working principles, design strategies, and fabrication methods of metamaterials, making this field cross and combine with many disciplines, including physics, material science, electronics, and chemistry. In recent years, with the rapid development of high‐efficiency and multifunctional metasurfaces, which are a two‐dimensional version of metamaterials, great efforts have been made to push this material to practical applications. In particular, the introduction of artificial intelligent (AI) algorithms enables metamaterials‐based photonic devices that exhibit excellent performances and intelligent functionalities. In this review, we first introduce the basic concepts, working principles, design methods, and applications of metamaterials, and then focus on the rapidly developing metamaterials research combined with AI algorithms. Finally, we conclude this review with personal perspectives on the current problems and future directions of metamaterials research and developments.

Revolutionary meta-imaging: from superlens to metalens

“…In fact, each part of the text has been more or less addressed by other review papers, for example, Refs. [31,49,82,83,[253][254][255][256][257][258][259][260][261][262][263][264][265]. This paper tries to provide an overall and historic view on this interesting and valuable progress from the perspective of imaging technology, where the intrinsic logical routes are worth revisiting carefully.…”

Single‐atom materials: The application in energy conversion

“…Although the wide spread of electricity largely improves the efficiency of energy conversion, higher productivity is still essential to be achieved via improving the efficiency of conversion of sustainable energy (e.g., solar and tidal energy) in the future. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] To better utilize the energy people obtain, researchers in different fields have developed many strategies, such as ameliorating the machine, reforming the theoretical discipline, and so on. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] After modern chemistry was put forward, the research on catalysis came into an explosive era.…”

“…Although the wide spread of electricity largely improves the efficiency of energy conversion, higher productivity is still essential to be achieved via improving the efficiency of conversion of sustainable energy (e.g., solar and tidal energy) in the future. [ 1–8 ]…”

Energy absorbing 4D printed meta-sandwich structures: load cycles and shape recovery

“…Metamaterials are innovative materials arti cially engineered to exhibit mechanical, thermal, acoustic or electromagnetic behavior not found in other naturally occurring materials (Liu and Zhang, 2011), (Frenzel et al, 2017), (Jia et al, 2020), (Chen et al, 2022). Their applications can be multiple and declinable in different sectors, from civil to biomedical, from electronics to aerospace, as well as in the broader manufacturing sector (Iwanaga, 2012), (Valipour et al, 2022), (Tawalbeh et al, 2022).…”