When a piece of bulk material encounters electromagnetic radiation, its molecules momentarily absorb energy from the radiation. Bianisotropics '97' was an international conference, held in the University in June 1997 and devoted to the study of the electromagnetic response properties of a huge class of complex materials called bianisotropic materials. These materials are often realised in the form of composites and can permit a wide variety of novel phenomena. Many bianisotropic materials have a property called chirality. Imagine Alice is standing in front of a mirror, holding a piece of a chiral material in her hands.
Sugar is chiral, so are many drugs and pesticides.
New drugs are nowadays required by the US Food and Drug Administration to be chirally pure for maximum effectiveness and to avoid catastrophic side-effects. Therefore, bianisotropic materials have many different response properties which are only now being studied owing to their complexity. Many different types of engineering applications have become possible in electrical engineering, optics and microwaves. New composite materials with nonlinear optical applications, such as in displays, are emerging. It is materials like this which hold considerable prospects for technological applications.