Abstract:

I will give an introduction to the field of metamaterials, which are composites that harness resonant microstructures elements to generate dynamic properties not found in natural materials, such as negative refraction and invisibility cloaking. I will take a multiple wave scattering approach to the design of metamaterials, which connects with the theory of Bloch waves. I will finish by discussing some of my research on these topics, which incorporates the so-called rainbow trapping phenomenon, using Rayleigh–Bloch waves for finite arrays.

Bio:

Luke Bennetts joined The University of Melbourne in 2025 as a Professor of Applied Mathematics. He had previously been a tenured academic at the University of Adelaide from 2011–2025, over which time he had been an Australian Research Council Early Career Research Fellow (2013–2016) and mid-career Future Fellow (2020–2024). Prior to moving to Adelaide, he received a PhD in Applied Mathematics in 2007 from the University of Reading, UK, and was a postdoc at the University of Otago, NZ, from 2007–2011. He works on multidisciplinary projects and has close collaborations with government research institutes. His main research focus is on mathematical modelling of water wave interactions with arrays of bodies, with applications to sea ice, ice shelves and wave energy. He is an Associate Editor of Proceedings A and SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, and a Deputy Editor of Wave Motion. He is active in his research communities, as the Chair of the KOZWaves wave science community, as a lead organiser of a 6-month Isaac Newton Institute Programme in 2023, and as the AustMS Vice President—Annual Conferences. He also engages in science communications, including multiple articles in The Conversation with >100,000 reads in total.