Waves in structured materials: symmetry and functionality

Artificial structuring of materials on the subwavelength scale has led to impressive scientific and tehnological results, often summarized by the terminology "metamaterials". In this seminar, I will review the basics of waves in structured media, and illustrate original research about the manipulation of polarization, absorption, Babinet complementarity, and nonreciprocity, mostly in classical electromagnetism, with some extra insights in acoustics.