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Metamaterials

Engineered structures that bend light, sound or radio waves in ways natural materials cannot.

China leads metamaterials research, with 55.5% of the 10% most cited papers published 2021–2025; the United States is second with 8.8%.

Added 14 October 2026. Its top papers were checked for relevance by AI, but its keywords and topic list have not yet been reviewed by hand.

CN
FirstChina55.5%
US
SecondUnited States8.8%
6.3×lead, by share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025

Standings

1CNChina55.5%2USUnited States8.8%3KRSouth Korea4.0%4–5SGSingapore2.6%4–5AUAustralia2.6%6INIndia2.5%7HKHong Kong2.0%8GBUnited Kingdom1.9%9DEGermany1.7%10IRIran1.6%

Share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025; 2,618 papers. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Year by year

China

0204060% China 58.5%

Everyone else, on a larger scale

051015% 20212022202320242025 United States 5.1%South Korea 4.0%India 2.7%Australia 2.2%Singapore 1.4%

Share of the 10% most cited papers published in each year. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Inside the field

Always the top 10%Pilot

Each paper sorted into one sub-area by an AI model reading its title and abstract, then credited as usual. On 200 hand-labelled papers it chose the same sub-area, or a defensible second, 92% of the time.

Sub-areaPapersFirstSecondThird
Optical metasurfaces: lenses, holography and polarisation498CNChina52.8%USUnited States13.3%KRSouth Korea9.2%
Mechanical metamaterials (auxetic, lattice, origami)464CNChina52.6%USUnited States11.8%AUAustralia4.6%
Metamaterial sensors (terahertz and optical)287CNChina46.9%INIndia11.7%SASaudi Arabia6.3%
Acoustic and elastic metamaterials276CNChina66.4%USUnited States5.3%HKHong Kong5.3%
Electromagnetic wave absorbers249CNChina69.3%INIndia5.1%IRIran3.3%
Resonant and chiral nanophotonics (bound states in the continuum)212CNChina48.1%USUnited States11.6%AUAustralia6.9%
Programmable metasurfaces for wireless and computing190CNChina70.1%USUnited States4.8%ITItaly3.2%
Metasurface antennas, beamforming and radar cross-section139CNChina47.0%SGSingapore5.7%INIndia5.1%
Thermal emission, radiative cooling and multispectral camouflage99CNChina66.6%USUnited States9.1%KRSouth Korea7.7%

Share of each sub-area's papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Earlier and recent

The same top 10%, split into 2021–2023 and 2024–2025.

FallingRising2021–20232024–2025Change
CNChina 52.6%58.7%+6.1 pts
USUnited States 10.9%6.4%−4.5 pts
KRSouth Korea 3.9%4.0%+0.2 pts
SGSingapore 3.3%1.9%−1.5 pts
AUAustralia 3.0%2.2%−0.8 pts
INIndia 2.5%2.6%+0.1 pts
HKHong Kong 1.4%2.6%+1.1 pts
GBUnited Kingdom 2.2%1.5%−0.7 pts

Share of the 10% most cited papers: 1,393 papers in 2021–2023, 1,225 in 2024–2025. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

2026 so far: a different count

Not the most cited papers: every 2026 paper matched so far (5,784), and a paper counts in full for each country on it. This year's papers are too new to rank by citations, so these shares cannot be compared with the ones above.

  1. CNChina58.6%of 2026 papers have an author here
  2. INIndia7.5%of 2026 papers have an author here
  3. USUnited States7.2%of 2026 papers have an author here
  4. GBUnited Kingdom3.7%of 2026 papers have an author here
  5. KRSouth Korea3.1%of 2026 papers have an author here

Who cites the top papers

How much more often a country's top papers are cited from home than its size predicts. Expected is the country's share of all papers in the field; the bar is the excess, in percentage points. Home citers include authors citing their own earlier work.

HomeExpectedExcess
CNChina 71.7%58.0%+13.7
USUnited States 20.9%10.7%+10.2
KRSouth Korea 12.9%3.4%+9.5
INIndia 27.2%6.1%+21.1
SGSingapore 13.9%2.5%+11.4

Based on up to 100 of each country's most cited single-country papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Behind the share

Institutions with the most credit

  1. 1CNHarbin Institute of Technology2.3%
  2. 2CNNorthwestern Polytechnical University1.8%
  3. 3CNSoutheast University1.8%
  4. 4CNNanjing University1.6%
  5. 5KRPohang University of Science and Technology1.5%
  6. 6CNZhejiang University1.5%
  7. 7CNXi'an Jiaotong University1.3%
  8. 8CNBeijing Institute of Technology1.3%
  9. 9CNTianjin University1.3%
  10. 10SGNational University of Singapore1.2%

Share of the top 10%. Institutions across all 45 technologies

Who does the work

SectorAllCNUSKR
Universities86.6%
90.4%
91.8%
90.4%
Research facilities9.6%
6.5%
4.2%
2.8%
Government labs2.3%
2.2%
1.6%
0.6%
Companies0.8%
0.3%
1.3%
5.4%

Share of credit by type of institution, overall and for the three leading countries.

Across borders

38.8% of the top 10% have authors in more than one country.

  1. CNUSChina with United States143
  2. CNSGChina with Singapore131
  3. CNHKChina with Hong Kong113
  4. AUCNAustralia with China99
  5. CNGBChina with United Kingdom71

Most frequent pairings, by number of shared papers.

The papers behind the numbers

The five most cited papers this definition catches. If one looks out of place, the definition needs work.

  1. Mechanical metamaterials and beyond
    Nature Communications, 2023CNUS
    739citations
  2. 713citations
  3. 645citations
  4. 629citations
  5. 625citations

More in materials and manufacturing

The most technologically advanced countries, and is China ahead of the US?

How this technology is defined

A paper counts if its title or abstract matches the search below. Articles in core journals and proceedings only; retracted papers are excluded.

metamaterial OR metamaterials OR metasurface OR metasurfaces

and its main topic in OpenAlex is one of: Metamaterials and Metasurfaces Applications; Acoustic Wave Phenomena Research; Advanced Antenna and Metasurface Technologies; Cellular and Composite Structures; Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research; Advanced Materials and Mechanics; Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies; Terahertz technology and applications; Electromagnetic wave absorption materials; Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics; Photonic Crystals and Applications; Topological Materials and Phenomena; Antenna Design and Analysis. The topic check removes papers that only mention the technology.

Papers matched, 2021–2025
26,194
In the top 10%
2,618
In the top 1%
263
Countries with credit
73
Credit with no known country
3.5%
Every one of the 3,131 most cited papers was checked for relevance; 88 were left out as not about metamaterials

The most cited of those left out:

  • Engineering Origami: A Comprehensive Review of Recent Applications, Design Methods, and Tools412 citations
  • Review of radiative cooling materials: Performance evaluation and design approaches358 citations
  • Bistable Structures for Advanced Functional Systems282 citations
  • Bioinspired Synergistic Photochromic Luminescence and Programmable Liquid Crystal Actuators224 citations
  • Catfish Effect Induced by Anion Sequential Doping for Microwave Absorption211 citations
  • Quasi-Optical Multi-Beam Antenna Technologies for B5G and 6G mmWave and THz Networks: A Review198 citations
  • Antenna Designs for CubeSats: A Review193 citations
  • The shape – morphing performance of magnetoactive soft materials185 citations
  • Scalable and Flexible Electrospun Film for Daytime Subambient Radiative Cooling170 citations
  • Trapped fractional charges at bulk defects in topological insulators161 citations
  • Hybrid emitters with raspberry-like hollow SiO2 spheres for passive daytime radiative cooling156 citations
  • Bioinspired Quasi‐3D Multiplexed Anti‐Counterfeit Imaging via Self‐Assembled and Nanoimprinted Photonic Architectures153 citations

Definition version 0.5, pilot. It is a plain text file: copy it, change it, rerun it.

Read the method