Optical metamaterials have exhibited great potential in imaging, computing, communications, energy and many other fields. However, the widespread application has been severely constrained by long-standing bottlenecks of single-scale structure, limited tunability, and complex processing.

In a study published in Nature, a research team from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS) in collaboration with Singapore researchers proposed a printable multiscale optical metamaterials strategy and developed a roll-to-roll additive nanoprinting manufacturing system, breaking the long-standing dilemma of cost, customization and mass production in optical metamaterial fields.

The team first established the multiscale optical framework, achieving the effective synergy between material property and structure design. They then combined high-throughput inkjet printing, continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing and precise interfacial self-assembly for scalable and precise fabrication of multiscale optical metamaterials. The fabricated metamaterials exhibit efficient light-matter interaction owing to the synergistic enhancement of multiple physical effects including scattering, photonic bandgaps and total internal reflections in a single structure. The systematic characterizations and theoretical analyses elucidated the fundamental regulation laws and core structure-property relationships in cross-scale structural systems, providing deep insights into the underlying physics of multiscale optical metamaterials.

Overall, the developed multiscale printing technology provides a unified metamaterial platform featuring scalable fabrication capability and multiscale structural designability, enabling the customized and low-cost manufacturing of hierarchical optical architectures. Furthermore, the as-fabricated metamaterials can be applied for various practical scenarios spanning from information security to intelligent displays owing to the remarkable flexibility and stability. Collectively, this strategy resolves the trade-off between optical functionality and engineering performance, providing key insights for multiscale photonics research.

This study was published in Nature. (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10408-8)

Printable multiscale optical metamaterials (Image by Kaixuan Li)

Contact:

Prof. Yanlin Song

Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Email: ylsong@iccas.ac.cn