The future of metamaterials depends on more than materials.
Metamaterials, whose unique properties come from their structural design rather than composition, possess rare abilities not typically found in natural materials. They’ll likely become increasingly crucial for next-gen tech development across communications, aerospace, defense, and computation.
Staying ahead of fabrication and material requirements is essential for success in their advancement, but requires overcoming some key challenges. As metamaterial design grows more complex, fabrication constraints can bottleneck production. Construction for some metamaterials occurs at the atomic level, and requires specialized facilities and an adequately trained workforce as well. Critical fabrication materials represent yet another potential chokepoint, with the United States relying heavily on foreign imports for many of the key elements needed to produce advanced metamaterials.
Where are the critical vulnerabilities in the materials, workforce, and infrastructure needed to scale metamaterial technology? How exposed is the United States on import dependencies and talent retention compared to global competitors? And what can policymakers do now to keep this technology within domestic and allied spheres?
To explore questions like these and more, this NSDPI paper maps the metamaterial ecosystem across critical materials, infrastructure, and applications.
Key Takeaways:
- Import Reliance: Essential polymers come from Japan, Germany, the United States and South Korea. The United States currently dominates the manufacturing space of two of the four emerging materials with strong prospects for use in metamaterial technology.
- Personnel Availability and “Brain Drain”: Recent data points to insufficiencies in the science and engineering pipeline in the United States. Invaluable research knowledge and experience is also under threat, with instances of proprietary U.S. academic research being duplicated in the PRC by former students without authorization. At least 21 nations have established programs dedicated to luring American researchers away from their home nation, threatening to further reduce the already shallow talent pool.
- U.S. and PRC Priorities: The United States and the PRC emphasize different application areas for metamaterials, with U.S. efforts often centered on defense while publicly available Chinese research focuses on communications, aerospace, and medical technologies.