Metamaterial
A metamaterial is a material whose macroscopic properties are not determined by the chemical elements it is made of but by the way it is structured on a scale that's small enough to be not perceivable by human senses or sufficient for a certain application.
Atomically precise metamaterials have control over the structure at the lowest physically possible level. They open up a new world of materials far beyond the ones we have today. Some proposals for new materials can be found on the diamondoid metamaterial page. Those are the basis for the prospective products of advanced advanced atomically precise manufacturing (APM) systems.
Note that - as a quick web search easily reveals - today (2016) the term metamaterial mostly refers to the subclass of electromagnetic metamaterials. This is simply because with current technology mechanical metamaterials are not yet producible fine enough and cheap enough to be of mainstream use.
From pixel to meta voxel
Just like metamaterials pixels on computer screens or printed colored dots on paper are used to fool human senses. Luckily it is not necessary to make a perfect copy of the real thing to give a perfect experience.
A side-note to current screen technology (2016): Note that while resolution by now often far exceeds human senses dynamic range (brightness) and color gamut (saturated color) are still heavily lacking. E.g. the bright and deeply orange rising sun can't yet be authentically captured and reproduced.
Obviously metamaterials can't be shrunk down arbitrarily (e.g. to atom size). There's a minimum size (volume) which is necessary to emulate a property. Metamaterial voxels must be bigger than that. Making meta voxels bigger then the absolute minimum size may sometimes help to improve the emulation quality (statistical average). Meta voxels of various compatible types can be mixed and meshed but if the material properties are supposed to vary with location the meta-voxels must be small enough such that they won't be experienced as graininess by human senses. So in summary there's a usable size range for meta-voxels.
In advanced atomically precise products depending on their internal complexity meta voxels could be realized:
- by a crystal of crystolecules that are a bit on the bigger side
- by microcomponents (ideal size?)
- or even product fragments just below the visibility limit of the human eye.
A good example for the possible usage of meta voxels fooling human senses can be found in prospective advanced food synthesis. Wile with inside knowledge it seems pretty impossible to create a perfect 1:1 copy of a natural apple. (That is every atom and molecule is present and at the identical place - when deep frozen). With sufficient effort it may be possible to create something that humans can't distinguish from a natural apple. Something that is actually completely different at the nanoscale - a meta apple. More practically, easy and maybe less morally questionable though will be to make some dough with more or less structure. Super advanced meta cake designer food so to say.
Meta - Why the word meta is used
A metamaterial does not have its properties inherently but rather describes them ("meta.." ... describing)
Related
External links
- Wikipedia: Mechanical metamaterial
- Wikipedia: Metamaterial
- Youtube: Magic 'metamaterials' ...; random metamaterial example
- Los Angeles Times Article: miura ori metamaterial
- Metamaterial Mechanisms (pdf) (Hasso-Plattner-Institut)
- A thermo-mechanical metamaterial: "Lightweight Mechanical Metamaterials with Tunable Negative Thermal Expansion"
