Diffusionics: Diffusion Process Controlled by Diffusion Metamaterials

Fu-Bao Yang received his B.S. degree from Xiamen University in 2018 and Ph.D. degree from Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China in 2023. His research interest includes transformation thermotics and extended theories; thermal metamaterials and their applications; diffusion metamaterials.

Ji-Ping Huang obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, in 2003. Since 2005, he has been a Professor in the Department of Physics at Fudan University, Shanghai, China. In 2004-2005, he was a Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation in Germany. His current research interests include non-equilibrium statistical physics, thermal metamaterials: transformation thermotics (thermodynamics) and extended theories, diffusion metamaterials: controlling energy and mass diffusion (diffusionics), non-Hermitian topology in diffusion systems, modern thermodynamics, and soft condensed matter theory. His groundbreaking work includes introducing the thermal cloak concept and extending it to diffusion metamaterials. As a result, from the perspective of governing equations, diffusion metamaterials and wave metamaterials (pioneered by J. B. Pendry in the 1990s) are recognized as the two most prominent branches in the field of metamaterials. These two branches differ in their emphasis on the diffusion equation (as the governing equation) and time-dependent characteristic lengths in diffusion metamaterials, in contrast to the wave equation (as the governing equation) and time-independent characteristic lengths in wave metamaterials. Huang’s pioneering contributions to diffusion metamaterials have been widely acknowledged and recognized by his colleagues, leading to invitations to publish review articles in Reviews of Modern Physics and Nature Reviews Physics, respectively.