Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A usually artificial material that exhibits special properties not normally found in nature, such as a negative index of refraction, in its interaction with electromagnetic radiation, sound, or other wave phenomena. Such properties are a consequence of the metamaterial's structure at the microscopic or macroscopic level, rather than of the underlying properties of its components.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun engineering , (physics) any material that obtains its electromagnetic properties from its structure rather than from its chemical composition; especially a material engineered to have features of a size less than that of the wavelength of a class of electromagnetic radiation

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Meta in Greek means beyond, so the term metamaterial means to create something that doesn't exist in nature.

    Medlogs - Recent stories 2008

  • Meta in Greek means beyond, so the term metamaterial means to create something that doesn't exist in nature.

    Nano Tech Wire 2008

  • In addition, the Princeton metamaterial is capable of negative refraction of light in the mid-infrared region, which is used in a wide range of sensing and communications applications.

    Semiconductor Structure Bends Light ‘Wrong’ Way | Impact Lab 2007

  • SIMON: He and his colleagues have engineered a microscopic material that can bend light, the stuff called metamaterial is no bigger tan a speck of dust.

    CNN Transcript Aug 23, 2008 2008

  • To get around conventional limitations, the researchers sculpted an array of sub-wavelength-wide grooves (dubbed a metamaterial) directly on the facet of quantum cascade lasers.

    The Engineer - News 2010

  • A metamaterial is a material that gains its properties from its structure rather than directly from its composition.

    India eNews 2009

  • The light-bending material is made from a so-called metamaterial - an engineered, exotic substance with properties not seen in nature.

    TechChee.com, shop online for gadget, gizmo and hot tech stuff 2009

  • Rather, it is a "metamaterial": an intricately constructed array of tiny silver wires embedded in aluminium oxide, which does weird things to the light waves that hit it, bending them in odd ways and sending them in unnatural directions.

    It's official: the new black is very, very black 2010

  • This was done with a new substance called a "metamaterial" which can bend electromagnetic radiation in ways once thought totally impossible.

    INTERVIEW: Dr. Michio Kaku 2008

  • A photo of the "metamaterial" cloak, released on October 19, 2006, which deflects microwave beams so they flow around a "hidden" object inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there at all.

    Scientists Create Cloak of Invisibility | Impact Lab 2006

Comments

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  • Fact with fiction's now indivisible;

    As science can make what was risible,

    A cloak ethereal

    Of metamaterial

    To render a lurker invisible.

    February 7, 2016