The article is closely connected to the ideas explored at Nobel Symposium NS205 on Metamaterials Science and Technology, held in Umeå in June–July 2026. The symposium brought together many of the international leaders who have shaped the field—from its foundations in negative-index materials to today’s metasurfaces, topological and quantum photonics, acoustics, sensing and emerging technologies. Its programme explicitly placed the broader “meta way of thinking” at the heart of the meeting: engineering physical responses through structure, geometry, symmetry and dynamics rather than relying only on properties found in nature.
What is the “meta way of thinking”?
It is a shift from asking, “What properties does this material have?” to asking, “What physical response do we want, and how can we design a structure that produces it?” Geometry, symmetry, topology and even time become design parameters. In that sense, metamaterials taught us to start with “what if?” and “why not?” questions.
How did the Nobel Symposium connect to this idea?
Very strongly. We had many of the people who created and developed the metamaterials field in the same room, discussing where it came from and where it is going. The programme moved from the historical foundations of metamaterials to emerging photonic materials, quantum and topological effects, acoustics and mechanics, sensing and future technologies. So the discussions naturally went beyond individual devices or phenomena and toward the broader question of what metamaterials have changed in the way we approach science and engineering.
Is that the main message of the Nature Materials Comment?
Yes. Metamaterials are an especially mature example of a more general design philosophy: structure itself can create function. We now see this logic extending from optics and electromagnetism into acoustics, mechanics, computation, chemistry and other areas. The field is therefore interesting not only because of what metamaterials can do, but because of the way of thinking they have introduced.
What was special about discussing this in the setting of a Nobel Symposium?
It gave us an unusual opportunity to look at the field across generations and across disciplines. When many of the people responsible for its key conceptual and experimental breakthroughs come together, you can see more clearly that metamaterials are not just a sequence of technological advances. There is a common intellectual thread—and that is what we are trying to capture with the idea of the “meta way of thinking.”
A. Dmitriev, M. P. Jonsson, M. Brongersma, N. Engheta, and N. Maccaferri, The meta way of thinking. Nature Mater. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-026-02710-7
