China's optical metamaterials achieve new breakthroughs, opening new pathways for multi-scale metamaterial research and micro-nano photonics applications

Optical metamaterials are humanity’s first true “design of light”—not merely making use of the optical properties of materials themselves. They directly drive optics from “passive utilization” to “active control,” serving as the core underlying technology for next-generation optoelectronics, communications, and imaging, and are especially crucial for advanced manufacturing and the energy sector. On April 22, 2026, Beijing time, researchers including Professor Qiu Chengwei and Dr. Chen Jianfeng from the National University of Singapore, together with Academician Song Yanlin, Associate Researcher Li Huizeng, and Dr. Li Kaixuan from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published breakthrough research results on optical metamaterials in the international academic journal Nature.

The research team proposed a new paradigm for printing multi-scale optical metamaterials, achieving coordinated optimization between material optical properties and structural design. With independently developed nano-printing manufacturing equipment, they made a breakthrough for the first time in the long-standing challenge of how to achieve low-cost, large-scale, and personalized mass production simultaneously for optical metamaterials. This enables large-scale, controllable fabrication and precise integration of multi-scale optical metamaterials—making metamaterial production “as simple as printing newspapers”—and opens up new pathways for research on multi-scale metamaterials and applications in micro-/nanoscale photonics. (Xinhua News Agency)