CHAPTER 7: Scattering at the Extreme with Metamaterials and Plasmonics

The ability to engineer and control the electromagnetic scattering from material bodies is of great importance in modern science and technology. In this chapter, we review some of the most exciting recent advances in this topic, enabled or inspired by metamaterials and plasmonics. We discuss, from a fundamental perspective, how to drastically suppress or enhance the scattering cross-section of a given object, as well as how to increase the lifetime of scattering resonances and the directivity of the scattering pattern. The possibility to control scattering processes “at the extreme” with metamaterials may find application in many diverse practical scenarios, including cloaking and invisibility, light trapping, energy harvesting, biochemical sensing and enhanced light–matter interaction at the micro- and nanoscale.