Despite its diversity, nature does not equip us with a complete set of possible material tools for controlling light. Man-made designer composites can fill in these material “gaps”, hosting all physically conceivable optical effects with improved strengths. The goal of this project is to create and explore a new class of designer composites that can interact with light through electric, magnetic, and most importantly magnetoelectric mechanisms. Such composites will be designed by combining features of both resonant metamaterials and nanocolloids and fabricated over centimeter-scale sizes. The project can lead to breakthroughs in several disciplines, resulting in novel optical materials and devices (one-way glass, new-generation solar cells, etc.), first experimental realizations of unconfirmed concepts from quantum field theory (dyon charge, anyon statistics, etc.), as well as sensitive material schemes for detection of axion dark matter.

2023

2027