Journal of Optics

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 Journal of Optics

J. Opt. 19 (2017) 080404 (3pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/2040-8986/aa77a8

Editorial

The century of metamaterials

1
Sergei Tretyakov ,
2
Augustine Urbas ,
3,4
Nikolay Zheludev
1
Aalto University, Finland
2
Air Force Research
Laboratory, United States of
America
3
University of Southampton,
United Kingdom
4
NTU, Singapore

This Editorial relates to the

Special Issue ‘The History of
Metamaterials’.

Who, at the end of the 20th century, could have predicted that the well-established
field of electromagnetism would be soon shaken to its foundation and rebuilt in
years to come? Who could have expected that a classical academic subject with a
150 year history would grab mass media headlines with reports of astonishing new
claims? The answer is nobody; but this revolution has happened and can be
encapsulated by one word—metamaterials, which was coined in the year 2000, at
the dawn of the new century [1]. The research domain of metamaterials has now
grown to a fully-fledged discipline in its own right. It is a synthetic field of
research with top talent from microwave and optical sciences, solid state physics,
materials science, acoustics, mechanics, nanotechnology and high-performance
computing all attracted by the subject. Since the beginning of the century some
24000 research papers have been written on the subject of metamaterials. Powerful
research groups rapidly emerged internationally to claim priorities and landmark
achievements in a burgeoning field that has enjoyed the favour of funding
agencies all over the world for many years. Unsurprisingly, broad interest in and
recognition of the new discipline has created multiple parallel histories of meta-
materials and diverse views on the genesis and prehistory of the discipline.
The Journal of Optics has put together this special issue on the History of
Metamaterials with the aim of giving leading researchers in the field an oppor-
tunity to narrate their personals stories of engagement in metamaterials research,
which as an ensemble of contributions defines the discipline as we know it today.
In coordination with the publisher we furnished invitations to researchers who
have accumulated the highest h-indices on the topic of ‘metamaterial(s)’ as
recorded by Web of Science, and also approached some key figures who in our
view were instrumental in developing the field. To our great satisfaction, the
overwhelming majority of invitations were accepted, however a few groups have
been unable to contribute. In particular, Professor Sir John Pendry is regrettably
among these, but we are delighted that Professor Will Stewart here provides a
memoir on the early days of their joint metamaterials research. Nevertheless, the
special issue has captured the metamaterials story very well. As Guest Editors, we
formulated strict conditions on papers for the special issue, which we intend future
historians to view as a credible source. We asked authors to be factual and
chronological, and to refrain from claims of priority—the facts shall speak for

2040-8978/17/080404+03$33.00 1 © 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK

J. Opt. 19 (2017) 080404 Editorial

themselves. Moreover, in contrast to the convention for research articles, we asked

that the overwhelming majority of references should be self-citations, to prevent
individual histories from becoming perhaps biased review papers.
So what are metamaterials? In the first paper to use the term, a ‘metamaterial’
is defined very specifically as a ‘composite medium, based on a periodic array of
interspaced conducting nonmagnetic split ring resonators and continuous wires’
[1]. Later definitions have broadened progressively to account for the expanding
meaning of the term: at around 2005 metamaterials were defined as ‘an arrange-
ment of artificial structural elements, designed to achieve advantageous and
unusual electromagnetic properties’ [2]; in 2010, as ‘artificial media structured on
a size scale smaller than the wavelength of external stimuli’ [3]; in 2015, as
‘manmade media providing electromagnetic properties on-demand’ [4]. Today,
the field rapidly expands beyond electromagnetics, and metamaterials are now
seen by some as ‘engineered material platforms for novel wave phenomena’ [5].
Metamaterials are now recognised as an enabling technology and one of the
most buoyant and exciting research disciplines at the crossroads between photo-
nics and nanoscience. With all the remarkable success and impact of the meta-
material research programmes internationally, the emergence of a mighty and
highly skilled research community, and the substantial funding across the globe,
why we do not see massive deployment of metamaterials yet? Many ask this
question. There are several reasons one would need to take into consideration
when answering it. First, we need to admit that the field was partially discredited
by overstated promises and hype in the early days of the discipline, and we all
have to take responsibility for this. This has made the industry over-cautious in
embracing metamaterials. Second, for a few years, due to enormous popular
interest in these applications, metamaterials were seen as only relevant to super-
resolution and cloaking, which limited the imagination of the general public and
technologists, overshadowing the potential practical impact of metamaterials in
other applications. This perception is rapidly changing, but it will take time for
industrial developers to appreciate the true potential of metamaterials across a
wide range of technologies. Third, the field of metamaterials is not a technology as
such, but a technology enabling design philosophy, and thus its proliferation faces
a number of challenges: greater education of end-users and exploration required in
many application fields; the development of high-throughput, cost-effective fab-
rication and design processes. Most importantly, however, the development of
integration approaches, such as metamaterial and fibre technology, metamaterial
and silicon photonic technology, and metamaterial-enabled laser and photovoltaic
technologies, is crucial. And finally, more time is needed: from the discovery of
the light emitting diode in 1925 and LED-based optical telecommunication in
1927 [6] more than 60 years were required for the massive deployment of these
optical telecommunications seen currently. While precursors of metamaterial
research can be traced back to more than a century (e.g. [7]), the field of meta-
materials is only 17 years old, and while a young field, we are already observing
the promising application development.
The special issue editors would like to thank all contributing authors to the
issue [8–16], and Jarlath McKenna and Isabelle Auffret-Babak, the IOP Journal of
Optics publishers, for making this special issue possible.

References

[1] Smith D R et al 2000 Composite medium with simultaneously negative permeability and
permittivity Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 4184–7
[2] http://metamorphose-vi.org/index.php/metamaterials
[3] Zheludev N I 2010 The road ahead for metamaterials Science 328 582–3
[4] Zheludev N I 2015 Obtaining optical properties on demand Science 348 973–4

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J. Opt. 19 (2017) 080404 Editorial

[5] http://congress2017.metamorphose-vi.org/
[6] Zheludev N 2007 The life and times of the LED—a 100 year history Nat. Photon. 1 189–92
[7] Tretyakov S 2017 A personal view on the origins and developments of the metamaterial
concept J. Opt. 19 013002
[8] Stewart W J 2017 The early days of metamaterials J. Opt. 19 084001
[9] Derov J, Hammond R and Youngs I 2017 The history of the early years of metamaterials in
USA and UK defense agencies J. Opt. 19 084002
[10] Padilla W and Averitt R 2017 Properties of dynamical electromagnetic metamaterials J. Opt.
19 084003
[11] Cui T J 2017 Microwave metamaterials – from passive to digital and programmable controls of
electromagnetic waves J. Opt. 19 084004
[12] Koschny T, Soukoulis C and Wegener M 2017 Metamaterials in microwaves, optics,
mechanics, thermodynamics, and transport J. Opt. 19 084005
[13] Tretyakov S A 2017 Complex-media electromagnetics and metamaterials J. Opt. 19 084006
[14] Wong Z J, Wang Y, O’Brien K, Rho J, Yin X, Zhang S, Fang N X, Yen T-J and Zhang X 2017
Optical and acoustic metamaterials: superlens, negative refractive index and invisibility
cloak J. Opt. 19 084007
[15] Alu A and Engheta N 2017 Enabling a new degree of wave control with metamaterials: a
personal perspective J. Opt. 19 084008
[16] Zheludev N I 2017 Metamaterials at the University of Southampton and beyond J. Opt. 19
084009