Metamaterials are materials consisting of small manmade structures, “meta-atoms,” arranged regularly (crystal-like) or randomly (such as in an amorphous material), similar to atoms in a conventional material. The focus of this book is the interaction of electromagnetic waves with these materials. The most famous metamaterials are those with a negative index of refraction and materials to be used for “invisibility cloaks.” The theoretical description of the properties of these materials, explained in the introductory chapters, is based on Maxwell’s equations and other laws and is derived therein from Maxwell’s equations. This means that physicists and most materials scientists should have no difficulty following the mathematical descriptions.
The frequency range discussed in this book is limited to microwaves. A special chapter is devoted to each type of metamaterial, highly ordered super crystals, random metamaterials, super noncrystals, and inhomogeneous metamaterials called “super quasicrystals.” Special groups of materials—gradient and two-dimensional metamaterials—are also discussed. The properties of each of these are discussed in detail. However, in most cases, the authors give only the final equations describing the properties and do not show enough to determine how to deduce them. In most cases, this is sufficient for the reader interested in applications. The synthesis of metamaterials is not described at all; the book is limited to the properties.
Even though the content of this book is based primarily on work conducted in the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves at the Southeast University in China, the authors took care to include references to the international literature in this area. Each chapter is followed by a long list of articles from the literature. Visualization of the information is accomplished with a large number (203) of very instructive figures. This book is recommended to every materials scientist who wants to apply or learn more about this new class of materials. However, as this book (1) is largely limited to the interaction of electromagnetic waves with metamaterials and (2) does not cover questions of synthesis, it is not suitable as a basis for a course on metamaterials.
Reviewer: Dieter Vollath of NanoConsulting, Stutensee, Germany.
