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It has been recently shown that scores of physical and chemical phenomena (including spontaneous emission, scattering and Förster energy transfer) can be controlled by nonlocal dielectric environments provided by metamaterials with hyperbolic dispersion and simpler metal/dielectric structures. At this time, we have researched van der Waals interactions and experimentally studied wetting of several metallic, dielectric and composite multilayered substrates. We have found that the wetting angle of water on top of MgF2 is highly sensitive to the thickness of the MgF2 layer and the nature of the underlying substrate that could be positioned as far as ~100 nm beneath the water/MgF2 interface. We refer to this phenomenon as long range wetting transparency. The latter effect cannot be described in terms of the most basic model of dispersion van der Waals-London forces based on pair-wise summation of dipole-dipole interactions across an interface or a gap separating the two media. We infer that the experimentally observed gradual change of the wetting angle with increase of the thickness of the MgF2 layer can possibly be explained by the distance dependence of the Hamaker function (describing the strength of interaction), which originates from retardation of electromagnetic waves at the distances comparable to a wavelength.

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In this Perspective, we make the case that (meta) material platforms that were originally designed to control the propagation of light can affect scores of physical and chemical phenomena, which are often thought to lie outside of the traditional electrodynamics domain. We show that nonlocal metal-dielectric environments, which can be as simple as metal−dielectric interfaces, can control spontaneous and stimulated emission, Forster energy transfer, wetting contact angle, and rates of chemical reactions. The affected phenomena can occur in both strong and weak coupling regimes and the large coupling strength seems to enhance the effects of nonlocal environments. This intriguing field of study has experienced a rapid growth over the past decade and many exciting discoveries and applications are expected in the years to come.

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