ABSTRACT
Metamaterials are mostly made as periodic structures by sophisticated techniques, resulting in metamaterial behavior restricted to a very narrow wavelength/energy region. One of the ways to create a metamaterial by self-organization as proposed by V. Yannopapas and N. V. Vitanov utilizes arrays of semiconductor particles, which could be prepared by chemical methods such as colloidal crystallization or ion implantation techniques. They propose a magnetic metamaterial, which exhibits strong magnetic activity within and below the optical region, due to strong exciton resonance. Similar approach can be used with metallic nanoparticles by arranging the particles in self-organized phases of liquid crystal as proposed by C. Rockstuhl and T. Scharf. Self-organized materials can be also used in combination with typically manufactured metamaterials. An example is to use liquid crystals to make the structure tunable. A very promising approach for the growth of self-organized micro- and nanostructures is based on directional solidification of eutectics.
