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Engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and the AMOLF institute in the Netherlands have invented the first mechanical metamaterials that easily transfer motion effortlessly in one direction while blocking it in the other, as described in a paper published on Feb. 13 in Nature. The material can be thought of as a mechanical one-way shield that blocks energy from coming in but easily transmits it going out the other side.

Prof. Al Bovik, holder of a Cockrell Family Regents Chair in the Wireless Networking and Communication Group (WNCG) and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, has received a $600,000 grant over five years from the National Institute for Standards and Technologies (NIST) to develop methodologies for testing the perceptual quality of images delivered by microwave, submillimeter wave, millimeter-wave, x-ray, infra-red, and optical imaging devices commonly deployed in security applications.

Join Prof. Andrea Alù as he shares insight into his work with metamaterials, light and an "invisibility cloak." 

Image: Erik Zumalt, The University of Texas at Austin Profs. Andrea Alù and Mikhail Belkin in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have created a new nonlinear metasurface, or meta mirror, that could one day enable the miniaturization of laser systems.