The word “metamaterial” literally means materials beyond the imaginable.  For example one nanometer = 1 billionth of a meter.  This is the scale that these molecules are designed and manufactured.  In recent years light can be manipulated in ways previously unimaginable and this has implications for the internet.

One key challenge being studied by researchers in South Hampton, UK is the current way the internet runs and uses electricity.  Currently pulses of light travel vasts distances through fiber optic cables where they are then converted into electrical signals, rooted by electronics then converted again.  It makes for a slow journey and uses a lot of energy.  With the advancement of metamaterials the need to hop from one fiber optic cable and router again and again would be eliminated and could just function through light.

photo by Karol Tusnio