Nanophotonic LLMs design optical metasurfaces in milliseconds instead of months

https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ai-approach-optical-months-milliseconds.html

"time-consuming simulations/ custom neural network creation for every new design, overcome training LLMs on >45K design dataset for quickly predicting how metasurface interacts with light... can work backward finding exact nanoscopic structure needed to reach desired light-manipulation outcome... optimizes free-form/ complex shapes offering higher performance/ efficiency... system responds to prompts so researchers need not be experts... paper-thin camera lens, eyeglass-weight VR headsets"