Leading research in China, the largest application in the United States
The emergence of metamaterials began in the field of physics in the 21st century and was first proposed by Veselago, a theoretical physicist of the former Soviet Union in 1968. Metamaterials were originally called left-handed materials (LHM) or negative refractive materials (NIM), but now they refer to artificial composite structures or composites with extraordinary physical properties not found in natural materials.
Metamaterials break through traditional material design ideas and obtain equivalent apparent properties directly through the design of ordered structures on the physical scale of materials, which are often beyond the reach of traditional materials, such as left-hand characteristics, inverse Doppler effect, inverse Snell effect, inverse Cherenkov effect, perfect lens effect, etc.
On these foundations, metamaterials also show broad application prospects. For example, left-handed materials can be used to make high-directional antennas, reverse wave antennas, microstrip antennas to suppress antenna edge radiation, radomes to facilitate the convergence of antenna radiation beams, and also to design phase shifters and filters.
The outstanding characteristics and revolutionary application prospects of metamaterials have attracted strong attention from the governments of the United States, China, Europe, Russia, Japan and other countries, as well as institutions such as Boeing and Thor. Metamaterials have become one of the hottest and most highly regarded cutting-edge high-tech technologies in the world. Related research has involved the basic principles and characteristics of metamaterials, experimental verification of metamaterials, metamaterial design, metamaterial processing and manufacturing, and applications of metamaterials.
At present, the global metamaterial technology is mainly concentrated in China, the United States, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Among them, the country with the most patents for metamaterial technology in the world is China, with a total of 4,718 patents. It is followed by the United States, which has 3210 patents for metamaterial technology, and Japan and South Korea, which have 3017 and 1077 patents respectively.
Specifically, China ’s research and development of metamaterial technology is relatively late, but with the strong support of the country and the efforts of all parties, the number of patents in 2011 achieved a huge leap, making China's metamaterial research in the forefront of the world. According to SooPAT data statistics, in 2018, the number of patent applications related to metamaterials in China was about 270, maintaining a high level of popularity.
U.S. metamaterials research started the earliest. In 1972, the United States was the first to apply for a frequency selective surface metamaterial technology patent. At present, the research institutions with patents on metamaterials in the United States are mainly MIT, Hewlett-Packard, University of California, Corning, SEATEE, and Raytheon.
Research on metamaterials was also earlier in Japan, and the earliest patent application was in 1980. At present, Japanese metamaterial patents are mainly concentrated in Mitsubishi, Canon, Fuji, Hitachi, Ricoh, Olympus, Sumitomo Electronics, Nikon, DOKURITS, Sony, etc.
South Korea started its patent application for metamaterial technology in 1993 and reached its peak in 2010. The Korean metamaterial patent application trend was similar to that of China in the early stage, but it did not show a leap in 2011. In addition, Samsung and LG Electronics hold most of the metamaterial patents.
In terms of specific applications, global metamaterials are mainly used in the military field. The application of metamaterials in stealth of weapons and equipment has attracted the most attention. The application of global metamaterials in stealth technology for weapons and equipment is still dominated by the United States. The United States not only provides policy support for the development of the metamaterial stealth technology field, but also cooperates with domestic private enterprises and scientific research institutions, and even directly provides funds for self-help enterprises or institutions in the research and development of stealth metamaterials. Because of this, the United States is currently the world's largest country in research and development of metamaterial stealth technology.
Second is Japan and Europe. Japan ’s metamaterial stealth technology is second only to the United States. Europe, with Russia, the United Kingdom, and Germany, has more advanced military equipment technology development areas in terms of metamaterial stealth technology.
Broad application prospects and huge potential scale
Based on the above analysis, it can be seen that the early application fields of global metamaterial industrialization are mainly concentrated in the military field. Since the 1980s, the United States, the European Union, and Japan and other developed countries have actively developed stealth metamaterials to enhance their combat capabilities, and also promoted Application of metamaterials in the stealth field of weapons and equipment. Industrialization development pace and market size.
According to the estimates of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, in 2017, the global application scale of metamaterials in weapon and equipment stealth technology was about 130 million US dollars. With the increase of R & D investment from various countries, the global market for the application of metamaterials in stealth technology of weapons and equipment will reach about 1.17 billion US dollars by 2025.