Metasurfaces for Emerging Security-Critical and Health Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The focus of this Special Issue is on the transformative potential of metasurfaces and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) in security-critical and health-oriented applications. Over the past decade, metasurfaces have emerged as a powerful class of engineered structures capable of manipulating electromagnetic waves with high precision. Their planar, compact, and tuneable nature makes them ideal candidates for next-generation systems in the domains of biomedical diagnostics, wireless security, and electromagnetic compatibility, which demand low-latency, energy-efficient, and adaptable solutions.

The scope of this collection encompasses both theoretical and experimental studies on the design, modelling, simulation, and deployment of metasurfaces and programmable electromagnetic environments.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together researchers from academia and industry who are pushing the boundaries of how metasurfaces can be used to enhance the safety, intelligence, and performance of systems operating in complex environments. It aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and provide a platform for emerging ideas and validated implementations that address real-world challenges ranging from secure IoT networks in healthcare settings to stealth communication in defence and aerospace applications.

While the existing literature has predominantly focused on the use of metasurfaces for communication enhancement, beamforming, and antenna miniaturization, this Special Issue shifts the lens toward security-centric and biomedical use cases—two areas that remain comparatively underexplored. By bridging this gap, the collection will offer new perspectives on how metasurfaces can be leveraged for both data protection and non-invasive, high-resolution sensing in dynamic environments. This Special Issue will thus serve as a timely and valuable supplement to ongoing work in photonics, wireless systems, and biomedical engineering, opening doors to future technologies grounded in programmable physics.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Metasurface-based sensors for biomedical diagnostics;

2. Reconfigurable metasurfaces in secure communications;

3. EM shielding using EBGs and metastructures;

4. Implantable and wearable metasurface designs;

5. Metasurfaces for non-invasive imaging and RF tomography;

6. RIS-assisted IoT healthcare networks;

7. Wave manipulation techniques for privacy-preserving sensors;

8. Dual-functional metasurfaces for health + encryption;

9. Machine learning-enabled metasurface design;

10. Metasurfaces in THz biomedical or security systems.

Dr. Rameez Asif
Guest Editor

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• metasurfaces
• reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs)
• biomedical sensing
•    electromagnetic shielding
• physical-layer security
• wearable and implantable devices
•    electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)
•   wireless security
• programmable metamaterials
• non-invasive diagnostics