Swinburne University has been awarded $526,081 from the Australian Research Council (ARC) to support new research into tunable wave metamaterials, with the funding granted under the ARC’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) scheme.
According to Swinburne, the grant has been awarded to physicist Dr Weibai Li, whose project will focus on developing topology-optimisation tools to automatically discover and design metamaterials capable of advanced wave manipulation.
In a news release, the university said metamaterials are engineered materials whose properties arise from their structure rather than their chemical composition, and are being explored for applications in sensing, energy harvesting and communications.
Swinburne also said the project will produce a computational tool and new optimisation algorithms to engineer materials with a wide range of frequency responses.
The university noted that tunable metamaterials may help address limitations in conventional waveguides, sensors and energy-harvesting devices.
“It is fantastic to see the ARC recognise and support early-career researchers in delivering high-quality research in a truly cutting-edge field that will create transformative impact for our society,” Swinburne Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Professor Karen Hapgood said.
“We take immense pride in our early career researchers and are thrilled by the ARC’s recognition of Dr Weibai Li.”
The university said the project aims not only to model but also to fabricate and characterise next-generation metamaterials designed for complex and high-performance wave control.
If successful, the university said the work could support progress in how energy is captured, concentrated or directed across a range of fields.
“This DECRA enables me to explore new and more automatic ways of discovering high-performance metamaterials,” Dr Li said.
“I hope the outcomes will provide researchers and engineers with new tools for solving complex wave-control challenges.”
The DECRA program forms part of the ARC’s broader Discovery scheme and is intended to support early-career researchers in pursuing innovative, high-impact projects over a three-year period.
