(Yicai) April 23 -- Scientists from China and Singapore have developed a new printing technique for multiscale optical metamaterials that could help solve a major bottleneck in producing the materials at scale and at low cost, opening up new possibilities in optoelectronics, communications, and imaging.

The team was led by Yanlin Song of the Institute of Chemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Cheng-Wei Qiu of the National University of Singapore. Their study, published yesterday in Nature, describes a strategy called “printable meta-assembly” that enables large-scale, high-precision fabrication of optical metamaterials through a roll-to-roll process, in which materials are continuously produced on a moving flexible sheet, similar to newspaper printing.

Optical metamaterials are artificially structured materials designed to control light in ways not found in nature, enabling applications in next-generation optoelectronics, communications, imaging, advanced manufacturing, and energy, such as ultra-thin lenses, high-speed optical chips, and anti-counterfeiting features. But the field still faces two major challenges. Most research has focused on single-scale structures, limiting functional performance, while fabrication has depended heavily on precision machining, making large-scale, low-cost manufacturing difficult and slowing commercialization.

To address those constraints, the researchers created a nanolattice-based microconcave optical interface that can precisely regulate optical transmission across multiple scales. According to the paper, the meta-assembly consists of low-cost polystyrene nanoparticles periodically embedded in a polydimethylsiloxane matrix, allowing guided-wave and reflected-wave dispersion and interference to be integrated through optical coupling.

The study said the method enables continuous printing with nanometer-level precision through roll-to-roll manufacturing. It also allows low-cost polymer nanomaterials to be rapidly turned into performance-tailored optical metamaterials spanning multiple length scales.

Song told the People’s Daily that the breakthrough reflects deep interdisciplinary integration across materials science, micro- and nano-optics, and advanced manufacturing. He added that the technology could show broad commercialization potential in photonic information, anti-counterfeiting imaging, precision medical sensing, and green photonic energy.

Editor: Emmi Laine