About Meta Materials Inc. (META®)
META® (NASDAQ: MMAT) is a developer of high-performance functional materials and intelligent surfaces that are scalable, sustainable, and efficient. Through applied physics and advanced design, we are pioneering a new class of multi-functional materials — called metamaterials — which have engineered properties that Go Beyond what is found in nature.
Our extensive technology platform is software and AI-design driven. This allows us to develop a library of solutions and functional prototypes much faster and at lower cost than traditional chemical synthesis. Core capabilities include holography, lithography, wireless sensing, ARfusion™ and PLASMAfusion™.
Our technology platform enables leading global brands to deliver breakthrough products to their customers in consumer electronics, 5G communications, health and wellness, aerospace, automotive, and clean energy. Our nano-optic technology manufactured in our secure facility provides anticounterfeiting security features for government documents and currencies and authentication for brands.
META has worked with some of the world’s leading companies including Airbus, Satair, Lockheed Martin, and Sekisui. META’s Nanotech business recently renewed a frame agreement with a top-ten central bank to develop a new security feature, and has delivered its LumaChrome™ security feature for more than 30 banknote denominations.
At META we make surfaces smarter, more sustainable, and we do more with less. Together with our partners, we go beyond what’s possible today by creating intelligent surfaces that protect, detect and connect.
Our achievements have been widely recognized, including being named a Lux Research Innovator of the Year in 2021.
What are metamaterials?
Metamaterials are a new class of functional materials, designed around unique patterns or structure, which causes them to interact with light and other forms of energy in ways not found in nature. Metamaterials enable properties and capabilities that go beyond those found in natural materials and which are generally not possible to create using conventional material discovery or specialty chemical manufacturing technologies. They typically consist of a multitude of structured individual elements, referred to as meta-atoms. These meta-atoms are of the same size-scale as that of the electronic circuitry in a computer chip and much smaller than conventional optical elements, such as lenses and prisms.
Metamaterials gain their properties not as much from their raw material composition as from their exactingly-designed structures. The precise shape, geometry, size, orientation, and arrangement of these nanostructures affect the electromagnetic waves of light, radio waves, and other forms of energy to create material properties that are not easily achievable with natural materials.
Whether it’s the science behind the design of functional materials or the nanofabrication technologies used to make them, everything about metamaterials requires a significant knowhow. But the rewards of making metamaterials are amazing. At META we are elegantly solving a number of longstanding challenges by thinking outside the box.
For instance,
- How do you block powerful and dangerous green lasers with what appears to be a normal-looking window?
- How do you replace and miniaturize a standard bulky camera lens with a thin flat lens optic and, in the bargain, create a better lens?
- How can light be trapped by a photovoltaic cell from almost any angle without mechanical trackers pointing the solar panels in the right direction?
- How can blood sugar be accurately measured without piercing the skin?
- How can the speed and resolution of new and legacy magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) healthcare scanners be increased by several orders of magnitude?
- How can a film receive and transmit radio waves, without losing efficiency?
- How can that same film de-fog and de-ice your windscreen, headlights or smart headgear, with no air flow and zero use of undesired rare earth metals?
At META, we do all of these things, and more. Our core technologies of rapid material design and fabrication by holography and rolling mask lithography have enabled our scientists and engineers to produce the world’s largest and most advanced library of advanced materials. Our advanced structural design technologies and scalable manufacturing methods provide a path to broad commercial opportunities in aerospace, medical, automotive, energy and other industries.
Materials at The Speed of Light™
META’s proprietary rapid design powered by super-computers and AI algorithms result in a library for customer material selection and virtual testing capabilities result in highly optimized structures. Our digital process essentially eliminates the need to spend months and millions of dollars developing/discovering chemistry-based solutions, offering incremental performance gains over legacy products.
Whether for our own products, or in response to custom requirements from industry, we are highly proficient at swiftly incorporating “meta” functionalities into both original and existing products. Our holographic and lithographic nanofabrication technologies allow new materials to be produced at high speed, large quantities (e.g. batch wise or roll-to-roll), and with dimensions suitable for seamless use in many large-area applications. This means that our products can be a competitive opportunity for any OEM who needs to rely on specialty high performance materials in almost any application, and yet keep performance/cost ratios under good control.
In fact, our metamaterials are so advanced, so capable and so cost effective that we’re enabling the innovation departments at some of the worlds largest companies in the aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, consumer electronics and healthcare industries to redesign aspects of their products in new fundamental ways. Our unique technologies are heralding a new age of affordable advanced materials that are being co-developed with some of the world’s best-known companies, including Samsung, Airbus SE and Lockheed Martin.
The very precise and demanding quality standards of advanced material design and nanofabrication require a robust quality management system. META has implemented and adheres to a carefully designed ISO 9001 Quality Management System (“QMS”) that is Industry 4.0 ready. Our QMS defines the quality standards we must meet and the policies, processes, testing procedures and auditing measures that META must employ to achieve and maintain these very high standards.
Many of our functional materials and metamaterials are designed to increase the efficient use of light and other energy forms. All of our products are designed and manufactured with environmental sustainability as a high priority. As a result, META was honoured to be named by the Cleantech Group in the prestigious 2019 Global Cleantech 100. The Global Cleantech 100 is an annual guide to the leading companies and themes in sustainable innovation. The Global Cleantech 100 features companies that are best positioned to solve tomorrow’s clean technology challenges.
In many ways, metamaterials are like early personal computers and cell phones. At the time of their invention, few people understood them or why they would ever need them. And yet, today, living without these devices is almost inconceivable.
Mission
Improving life on Earth through advanced metamaterial science.
Vision
Make nanotechnology and smart materials accessible to everyone.
Values
Functionality
We create Advanced Functional materials that improve and add value to technology and purpose-built products. They are elegant solutions to complex problems. Every Advanced Functional material we develop for our customers has a practical application.
Curiosity
“What’s possible” is a line we love crossing. Our inventive, imaginative spirit drives beyond perceived roadblocks. We are diving deep into revolutionary tech to shed light on new possibilities.
Sustainability
We take a clean approach to technology. Sustainability is key to everything from the materials we create, to the suppliers we use, to how we operate every day.
Ambition
We innovate and perfect advanced functional materials. We seek to better our world through the power of nanotechnology.
Excellence
We believe in the relentless pursuit of excellence in execution – working with urgency, innovation and passion. Excellence is always intentional. Our success as individuals and as an organization depends on how consistently we can bring this value to life.
META is most decidedly an equal opportunities employer. We want applicants of diverse background and hire without regard to race, color, gender, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, disability, age, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by law. We are proud to part of the initial 500 early adopter companies of the 50 – 30 Challenge, an initiative by the Government of Canada to help businesses meet the diversity and inclusion goals.