EU researchers have investigated basic metamaterials that possess extreme chirality, and developed an electrically controllable active graphene polariser. They experimentally demonstrated a new class of bilayer metamaterial structures that can significantly enhance optical activity through strong inter-molecule coupling between adjacent planar chiral metamolecules.
Metamaterials comprise assemblies of multiple elements fashioned from composite materials that exhibit unusual optical properties not found in nature. The EU-funded GRAB-A-META (Graphene based active metamaterials) project used graphene metamaterial technology to develop active control of optical properties, including polarisation and the speed of light.
Further information: Graphene metamaterials control the speed of light