Metamaterials are one of the wonders of modern physics. Made using repeating 3D patterns of electronic components such as capacitors and resistors, metamaterials interact with light waves, steering them in ways that are impossible with ordinary stuff. The result: more invisibility cloaks than you can shake a wand at.
But there is no magic at work. The general theory that explains this is known as transformation optics. And the mathematics behind it is formally analogous to the equations that describe how mass warps spacetime to generate gravity. That’s why physicists have been able to use a metamaterial to simulate the way that a black hole traps light.
Now Igor Smolyaninov and Vera Smolyaninova at the University of Maryland in College Park say metamaterials may be formally linked to another area of physics: superconductivity. In particular, they say that superconductors may be a special form of metamaterial that steer electrons instead of light. That raises the tantalising possibility that the secret to high temperature superconductivity could lie in the development of a new generation of metamaterials that exploit this idea further.
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