Light People: Professor Guangming Tao

‘In the short but hot summer nights, only by opening doors and windows can the room be cooled down slightly’ complained the famous Chinese poet Fu Du in his poem Summer Night Lament more than 1000 years ago. Currently, people are suffering from the summer heat, with ambient temperatures around or exceeding 40 °C. Phrases such as “killer hot days” are no longer exaggerated statements. Hot weather can not only frustrate people, but also make people sick or even endanger lives owing to heatstroke. Fortunately, scientists have come up with a great invention, which will provide us with some much-needed relief in hot summers—the optical metafabric. The magic of this innovation is that, although it feels just like a normal fabric and has all the necessary properties of a wearable fabric, a garment made with it can cool down one’s body by nearly 5 °C even under direct sunlight, making it ideal for summer clothing. In the last few years, a team led by Prof. Guangming Tao of Huazhong University of Science and Technology has achieved remarkable progress in the area of optical metafabrics, finding new applications for this material and making it more affordable. Now, please follow our Light Science Editor as he explores this amazing new material and finds how it has been used in the industry, society, and Winter Olympics.