We study light, current, heat, and sound interactions on nanoscale and develop new smart materials and devices for solar energy and fresh water harvesting, personal thermal comfort, night vision, space exploration, and bio-chemical sensing.
Prospective graduate students – If you are interested in joining the META lab, you can apply to the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Program, Materials Science and Engineering Graduate Program, Computational Science and Engineering Program or the Mechanical Engineering department at MIT and – if accepted – reach out to discuss your fit with our lab.
We are always happy to host postdoctoral fellows funded by external fellowships (e.g., Marie Curie, etc). Please also reach out to discuss your fellowship proposal preparation and/or to discuss your research interests and skills in case funding becomes available in the future.
UROP researchers are always welcome – MIT undergraduates across all programs can reach out to seek to participate in ongoing research project, especially those with 3D design/printing, knitting, weaving, Arduino circuit design and prototyping skills.
Latest news
META group research on the Axiom Ax-2 mission launch
Axiom Space Ax-2 mission carried to space radiation shields prototyped by Duo Xu and Dr. Volodymyr Korolovych in collaboration with the Cosmic Shielding Corp as well as the MIT Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit equipped by strain sensors co-developed by Amy Hyunh.
SVETEX textiles nominated for the EarthShot prize
Low-carbon passively-cooling SVETEX polyethylene textile technology addresses global challenges on providing thermal comfort, recycling plastic waste, reducing terrestrial plastic pollution, and enabling space exploration (knitting credit: Mary Jane Schmuhl; image credit: Felice Frankel).
Elastocaloric fibers featured at MIT Energy Night
Buxuan Li, You Lyu and Duo Xu presented solid-state elastocaloric refrigerator and heat pump materials developed in the META Lab as an efficient and sustainable replacement for the conventional HVAC technology.
Exotic photonic materials enable one-way transport
Topological materials with internal magnetic order and under external stimuli studied and engineered by Simo Pajovic, Morgan Blevins, Abhishek Mukherjee, and Hannah Gold enable nonreciprocal emission, one-way surface plasmon transport, and near-field thermal switches.