Meta-Atoms, Metamaterials, Metasurfaces

The META team has been developing research work on self-assembled metamaterials for the past ten years. Metamaterials are artificial materials whose structure is designed to induce specific properties of wave propagation, possibly unknown in natural materials. Our approach is based on the use of self-assembly and physics of soft matter to design, manufacture and assemble colloidal resonators of sub-wavelength size, constituting the “meta-atoms” whose response allows strong modulation of the amplitude and phase of the transmitted, reflected or propagated wave. New properties have been obtained on the one hand for ultrasonic acoustic waves and on the other hand for visible light. As much as possible, the work covers the entire research chain including (1) the design of materials (2) their development (synthesis of elementary bricks and assembly) (3) the study of their structure and their properties and (4) analytical and numerical modeling.