Virtual and Physical Prototyping

Additive Manufacturing for Next-Generation Multifunctional Metamaterials

The development of advanced manufacturing technologies is fundamentally enabling the generation of multifunctional metamaterials. These architected systems go beyond traditional material limits by integrating control over mechanical, photonic, acoustic, thermal, and electromagnetic properties within unified structures. Their realization, however, is tightly linked to overcoming the limitations of traditional fabrication, which often fails to achieve the requisite intricate geometries and multi-scale features. Additive manufacturing and related digital processes have emerged as pivotal solutions, providing unparalleled design freedom and functional precision to create dynamically responsive, hierarchically organized, and spatially graded material systems.

The merger of advanced manufacturing and metamaterials is transforming science and industry. It enables novel physical exploration, rapid prototyping, and tailored material architectures. Additively produced multifunctional metamaterials foster innovations in aerospace, automotive, biomedical, and smart infrastructure systems. By merging functions like load-bearing with energy harvesting or thermal regulation, they yield lighter and more efficient solutions. Key challenges include scalability, reliability, and sustainable production.

This Article Collection invites submissions that explore novel manufacturing routes and design methodologies for functional and multifunctional metamaterials. We welcome both experimental and theoretical contributions, including studies that integrate computation and AI-driven design with physical fabrication. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Advanced Additive Manufacturing: High-resolution, multi-material, 4D, hybrid, and volumetric printing techniques for metamaterials with dynamic and programmable behavior.
• Micro- and Nanofabrication: Lithography, nanoimprinting, direct writing, and other techniques for creating precise features at small scales.
• Physics-Driven Design and Modeling: Architectural design, topology optimization, inverse design, stochastic structure generation, multiphysics- and multiscale- modeling for metamaterials.
• AI-Driven Discovery and Intelligent Manufacturing: Application of machine learning and artificial intelligence for architecture generation, process optimization through real-time monitoring, and predictive quality assurance in closed-loop fabrication.
• Bio-inspired Design and Fabrication: Novel fabrication techniques inspired by natural principles for to realize hierarchical, adaptive, resilient, and multifunctional architectures.
• Scalable and Sustainable Manufacturing: Strategies for large-area production, recyclable material usage, energy-efficient processes, and circular lifecycle design.

We encourage the submission of Original Research and Review Articles that contribute to the next generation of manufacturing technologies for multifunctional metamaterials.

Keywords: Additive Manufacturing; Multifunctional Metamaterials; Architectural Design; Artificial Intelligence; Sustainable Fabrication

­­All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this Collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member).

Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is [June 30, 2026].

Please contact Zhan Yu at [email protected] with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

Please be sure to select "Additive Manufacturing for Next-Generation Multifunctional Metamaterials" from the drop-down menu in the submission system.

Dr. Zhendong Li is a Research Fellow at Central South University and is currently engaged full-time in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore through an ongoing research project. His work centers on architected and multifunctional materials, with a particular focus on hierarchical, bio-inspired, and non-conventional designs, advanced additive manufacturing techniques, and the investigation of coupled physical properties.

Prof. Abu Al-Rub is currently the Leader of ADAM (Advanced Digital & Additive Manufacturing) Group and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Khalifa University. He has been a Professor at Texas A&M University. Professor Abu Al-Rub primary research field of interests are in employing digital design and 3D printing for creating multifunctional architected materials and composites for various engineering applications. He has published one book, 6 patents in additive manufacturing, and over 300 publications. He has served as the principle/co-principal investigator of more than 30 projects; he is responsible for more than $36Million.

Dr. Biwei Deng is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Laser Micro-Nano Manufacturing and Metrology Research Group at Yongjiang Laboratory. His research focuses on the design and manufacturing of novel mechanical metamaterials, including innovative structural designs towards extreme mechanics, two-photon polymerization fabrication of micro-nano scale metamaterials, in-situ multiphysical characterization, etc.

Dr. Xinxin Wang is a Research Fellow at Central South University. His research focuses on mechanical metamaterials, with emphasis on the structural design, additive manufacturing, and performance characterization of novel structural materials, as well as the exploration of complex mechanical properties of composite multifunctional materials.

Dr. Sibo Huang received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2022. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on acoustic functional materials, including noise control, coupled-resonance modulation, sound emission modulation, and acoustic energy harvesting.