Active Metamaterials

The Active Metamaterials Special Interest Group (SIG) will explore the science, technology and application of active, reconfigurable and programmable metamaterials and metasurfaces, covering the optical, microwave/RF and mechanical domains.

The application space for conventional metamaterials is limited by the fact that they have a response that is ‘fixed at the point of fabrication’.

Active Metamaterials overcome such limitations, advancing the metamaterial concept beyond conventional approaches and opening the door to dynamical tunability to respond to external stimuli, and real-time reconfigurability to meet specific function.

By embedding such novel functionality into metamaterials, we enable new ways to control energy and waves, and to transmit receive and process information, offering game-changing product performance, efficiency and multifunctionality.

Active Metamaterials Roadmap

See Simon Pope, Diane Roth et al, ‘The 2026 Active Metamaterials Roadmap.’ (2026).

Active metamaterials are engineered structures that possess novel properties that can be changed after the point of manufacture. Their novel properties arise predominantly from their physical structure, as opposed to their chemical composition and can be changed through means such as direct energy addition into wave paths, or physically changing/morphing the structure in response to both a user or environmental input.

Active metamaterials are currently of wide interest to the physics community and encompass a range of sub-domains in applied physics (e.g. photonic, microwave, acoustic, mechanical, etc.). They possess the potential to provide solutions that are more suitable to specific applications, or which allow novel properties to be produced which cannot be achieved with passive metamaterials, such as time-varying or gain enhancement effects. They have the potential to help solve some of the important current and future problems faced by the advancement of modern society, such as achieving net-zero, sustainability, healthcare and equality goals. Despite their huge potential, the added complexity of their design and operation, compared to passive metamaterials creates challenges to the advancement of the field, particularly beyond theoretical and lab-based experiments.

This roadmap brings together experts in all types of active metamaterials and across a wide range of areas of applied physics. The objective is to provide an overview of the current state of the art and the associated current/future challenges, with the hope that the required advances identified create a roadmap for the future advancement and application of this field.