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Metamaterials are engineered materials with unusual, unique properties and advanced functionalities that are a direct consequence of their microarchitecture. While initial properties and functionalities were limited to optics and electromagnetism, many novel categories of metamaterials that have applications in many different areas of research and practice, including acoustic, mechanics, biomaterials, and thermal engineering, have appeared in the last decade. This editorial serves as a prelude to the special issue with the same title that presents a number of selected studies in these directions. In particular, we review some of the most important developments in the design and fabrication of metamaterials with an emphasis on the more recent categories. We also suggest some directions for future research.

While over the past decade architected cellular materials have been shown to possess unique mechanical properties, their thermal properties have received relatively little attention. Here, we investigate thermal transport in hollow nickel microlattices as a function of temperature and mechanical loading using infrared thermography. The effective thermal conductivity of hollow nickel microlattices with 99.9% porosity and 1 µm layer thickness is as low as 0.049 W m−1 K−1 at 320 K and increases to 0.075 W m−1 K−1 at 480 K, an increase we attribute to internal thermal radiation. By measuring the emissivity and using the Stephan-Boltzmann law, we estimate the contribution of thermal radiation in the effective thermal conductivity to range from 20% at 320 K to 49% at 480 K. The high porosity of microlattices strongly limits solid conduction and makes surface radiation very important in thermal transport. We further explore the impact of the strut surface condition by comparing hollow doped nickel microlattices with a smooth surface to those with a rough surface: the emissivity increases from 0.24 to 0.43, leading to increased thermal radiation contributions of 41% at 320 K to 58% at 480 K. Under mechanical loading, as the strain increases from 0% to 50%, decreasing the angle between the struts and the horizontal plane from 60° to 38°, the effective thermal conductivity decreases from 0.049 W m−1 K−1 to 0.016 W m−1 K−1. These findings indicate that architected cellular materials provide an excellent platform to control thermal properties independently on mechanical properties and to potentially develop thermal and thermomechanical metamaterials.

Ordered periodic microlattices with densities from 0.5 mg/cm3 to 500 mg/cm3 are fabricated by depositing various thin film materials (Au, Cu, Ni, SiO2, poly(C8H4F4)) onto sacrificial polymer lattice templates. Young's modulus and strength are measured in compression and the density scaling is determined. At low relative densities, recovery from compressive strains of 50% and higher is observed, independent of lattice material. An analytical model is shown to accurately predict the transition between recoverable “pseudo-superelastic” and irrecoverable plastic deformation for all constituent materials. These materials are of interest for energy storage applications, deployable structures, and for acoustic, shock, and vibration damping.