Information Metamaterials and Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

Introduction

Metamaterial has been research frontier and hotspot in the fields of physics and information science. The research team established a new direction of metamaterial - information metamaterial, which can manipulate electromagnetic waves in real time and process digital information in the electromagnetic space. A series of breakthrough and influential results have been achieved.

Establishing a New System of Information Metamaterial to Fuse Electromagnetic Space and Digital Space

Aiming at challenges of the traditional metamaterial technologies such as complicated theories, difficult implementations and fixed functionalities, a new theoretical framework of information metamaterial was established for the first time. Through digital coding representation, the metamaterial has been evolved from passive to active and from analog to digital. Hence the information metamaterial can fuse the electromagnetic space and digital space, and complete the perception, processing and modulation of information while manipulating the electromagnetic fields and waves. The information metamaterial has three key features. Firstly, it can control the electromagnetic waves in real time and in programmable way, fostering reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technology and establishing a new paradigm for 6G intelligent programmable wireless environments. Secondly, it can control the electromagnetic waves and process digital information simultaneously, laying the foundation for electromagnetic information theory and developing a new architecture for low-power wireless communication systems. Thirdly, it can be deeply integrated with artificial intelligence to build up programmable neural network hardware, which can perform image recognition and classification, target detection, and wireless communications in programmable way.

Opening up a New Path for the Integration of Electromagnetic Wave and Digital Information, and Promoting Transformative Technologies

Similar to the development from analog circuit to digital circuit, the digitization of information metamaterial unit provides a new method for the characterization of metamaterial, and its space-time-coding features lay the foundation for integrating the electromagnetic physics and digital space. Through the space-time-coding design theories such as electromagnetic space convolution and time shift theorems, the intormation metamaterial can achieve highly efficient and accurate controls of all parameters of electromagnetic waves, promote the integration of radio frequency and digital baseband, provide a new dimension for developing the information technology, and give birth to new architecture electronic information systems.

The RIS technology based on the information metamaterial has become one of the key technologies for 6G communications. It was selected as one of the Top Ten Emerging Technologies in 2024 by the Fourth Industrial Revolution Research Center and released by the World Economic Forum. It is the only technology originating from China, and its influence ranks among the top five in both commercial and research fields. It has become a potential breakthrough for China’s leadership in the original technology and the global industrial chain. Chinese enterprises such as China Mobile, China Unicom and ZTE are cooperating with the research team to promote this technology to form international standards.

The Research Achievements Have Been Highly Recognized in Both Academia and Industry Worldwide

The five representative articles of this achievement have received extensive attention from the academic community. To date, they have a total of 5,811 citations on Google Scholars, and the first article has been cited by 2,761 times, making it the most cited paper in the history of Light Science and Applications. Several renowned academic journals have published special issues on information metamaterials. The achievement has received many honors and awards, including the Tan Kah Kee Science Award in 2024, the IEEE Communications Society Marconi Prize in 2024, the National Innovation and Excellence Award in 2023, the Frontier Science Award in the First International Basic Science Conference in 2023, the Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advances in Chinese Universities in 2021, and the Natural Science Award of China Institute of Communications (first class) in 2023. Many prominent scholars, including H. Vincent Poor (member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, professor at Princeton University), Robert Schober (Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, President of the IEEE Communications Society, professor at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), Nikolay I. Zheludev (Wolfson Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the European Physical Society, and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Optics), Yuri S. Kivshar (Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and recipient of the Stefanos Pnematikos International Award), have highlighted this achievement. They commented that the information metamaterials have introduced new methods for electromagnetic wave manipulation and provided a theoretical basis for the performance improvement of radio frequency communication systems.