Design of broadband achromatic metasurface device based on phase-change material Ge2Sb2Te5

Based on the phase-change material Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST), achromatic metasurface optical device in the longer-infrared wavelength is designed. With the combination of the linear phase gradient GST nanopillar and the adjustment of the crystalline fraction m value of GST, the polarization insensitive achromic metalenses and beam deflector metasurface within the longer-infrared wavelength 9.5 μm to 13 μm are realized. The design results show that the achromatic metalenses can be focused on the same focal plane within the working waveband. The simulation calculation results show that the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the focusing spot reaches the diffraction limit at each wavelength. In addition, the same method is also used to design a broadband achromatic beam deflector metasurface with the same deflection angle of 19°. The method proposed in this article not only provides new ideas for the design of achromatic metasurfaces, but also provides new possibilities for the integration of optical imaging, optical coding and other related optical systems.     

单层超薄高效圆极化超表面透镜

针对超表面在透镜方面的应用, 本文设计了一种交叉极化透射聚焦超表面, 实现了将圆极化波转化为交叉极化波的同时聚焦电磁波的功能. 设计了一款旋转型单元, 单元为一层且厚度仅为1.5 mm, 分析了旋转型单元提供不同相移的原理并设计了相邻单元相移差为60°的相位梯度超表面, 在中心频率f=15 GHz附近发生奇异折射, 折射角与理论计算结果一致, 验证了设计单元的有效性, 基于该单元设计了尺寸为90 m mm×90 mm、单元数为15×15 的透射型聚焦超表面, 在中心频率f=15 GHz附近, 左旋圆极化平面波照射时, 透射波聚焦于L=40 mm 的实焦点且透射波为照射波的交叉极化波. 该超表面透镜效率高、厚度薄且为单层, 易于加工, 相对于传统透镜, 优势明显, 在操控电磁波、改善透镜性能方面有潜在应用价值.     

Wide-band circular polarization-keeping reflection mediated by metasurface

In this paper,we show that circular polarization-keeping reflection can be achieved using reflective metasurfaces.The underlying physical mechanism of the polarization-keeping reflection is analyzed using a reflection matrix.A wideband circular polarization-keeping reflector is demonstrated using N-shaped resonators.Both the simulation and experiment results show that the polarization-keeping reflection can be achieved with a high efficiency larger than 98%over the frequency range from 9.2 GHz to 17.7 GHz for both incident left-and right-handed circularly polarized waves.Under oblique incidence,the bandwidth increases as the incident angle varies from 0°to 80°. Moreover,the co-polarization reflection is independent of the incident azimuth angles.     

Multi-band giant circular dichroism based on conjugated bilayer twisted-semicircle nanostructure at optical frequency

Plasmonic circular dichroism (CD) effect has been drawn great attention increasingly for its wide application in the fields of bio-sensing, biological detection, pharmaceuticals, and analytical chemistry. In this paper, we propose a chiral metasurface (CMS) to achieve strong multi-band CD effect at optical frequency. The designed CMS is composed of a periodic array of conjugated bilayer twisted-semicircle nanostructures. The numerical simulation results show that the CMS can produce strong multi-band CD effect due to the different coupling resonance modes under the excitations of left-handed circular polarization (LCP) light and right-handed circular polarization (RCP) light. It is shown that the chiral-selective absorption peaks can reach 89.4% and 95% for LCP light, 79% and 78.2% for RCP light, and the maximum CD is about 0.69 and −0.61 at 198.75 THz and 352.25 THz, 0.69 and −0.54 at 291.75 THz and 402.25 THz, respectively. The mechanism of the giant CD effect of the CSM has been revealed by analyzing the coupling mode of electric dipoles on the top and bottom layer through surface current distributions. Furthermore, the geometric parameter dependences of CD effect in the proposed CMS have been also studied numerically. The present results will guide the design of plasmonic chiral nanostructures for enhancing the CD effect.     

Broadband high-efficiency controllable asymmetric propagation by pentamode acoustic metasurface

We utilise the pentamode metasurface to realise broadband high-efficiency and controllable asymmetric transmission. The designed metasurface can manipulate the acoustic waves, as expected from the generalised Snell's law, and exhibits unique characteristics such as extraordinary broadband acoustic control, apparent negative refraction, and conversion from the propagating wave to surface mode. The asymmetric transmission features of positive refraction for the forward incidence (FI) and negative refraction for the reverse incidence (RI) can be realised within the range of 2600 Hz to 5600 Hz by controlling the incident angle from 0° to 35° with the transmission efficiency higher than 85.4% for the FI and RI. In addition, by further adjusting the angle of incidence in the range of 25° to 90°, asymmetric transmission characteristics can be expressed as surface wave transmission for the FI and transmitted wave transmission for the RI within the same frequency ranges.     

High efficiency and broad bandwidth terahertz vortex beam generation based on ultra-thin transmission Pancharatnam–Berry metasurfaces

The terahertz(THz) vortex beam generators are designed and theoretically investigated based on single-layer ultra-thin transmission metasurfaces. Noncontinuous phase changes of metasurfaces are obtained by utilizing Pancharatnam–Berry phase elements, which possess different rotation angles and are arranged on two concentric rings centered on the origin.The circularly polarized incident THz beam could be turned into a cross-polarization transmission wave, and the orbital angular momentum(OAM) varies in value by lh. The l values change from ±1 to ±5, and the maximal cross-polarization conversion efficiency that could be achieved is 23%, which nearly reaches the theoretical limit of a single-layer structure.The frequency range of the designed vortex generator is from 1.2 THz to 1.9 THz, and the generated THz vortex beam could keep a high fidelity in the operating bandwidth. The propagation behavior of the emerged THz vortex beam is analyzed in detail. Our work offers a novel way of designing ultra-thin and single-layer vortex beam generators, which have low process complexity, high conversion efficiency and broad bandwidth.     

简单结构超表面实现波长和偏振态同时复用全息显示新方法

本文基于衍射光学设计理论,提出了仅用一种简单结构实现波长和偏振态同时复用全息显示新方法.构建了不同入射条件下超表面微元的结构参数与透过相位之间的映射关系,建立了科学的评价函数,优化得到超表面每个像素点处最优的单一结构超表面微元尺寸.仿真结果表明,本文设计的超表面实现了波长为532 nm的x线偏振光和波长为633 nm的y线偏振光入射显示不同形状字符的功能.     

High gain and circularly polarized substrate integrated waveguide cavity antenna array based on metasurface

Two substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity antenna arrays based on metasurface are proposed in this paper. By rotating the metasurface element, circularly polarized and high gain antennas are achieved respectively. Firstly, multi-mode resonance theory is employed to broaden the bandwidth of the slot antenna. And then, an SIW cavity composed of 4×4 cornercut elements is added on the top of the slot antenna to achieve the circular polarization and improve the front-to-back ratio. Thirdly, the metasurface elements are sequentially rotated and a high gain antenna with 2-dBi enhancement on average in the operation band is obtained. Based on the two antenna units, two 2×2 antenna arrays are designed. The circularly polarized and high gain antenna arrays are both fabricated to verify the correctness. Furthermore, the novel wideband phase shifter is employed in the circularly polarized antenna to obtain an operating bandwidth of 38% (4.05 GHz-5.95 GHz) and AR bandwidth of 24.9% (4.4 GHz-5.65 GHz). The bandwidth of the high gain antenna can reach 42.7% (3.95 GHz-6.1 GHz) and with the gain enhancement of 2 dBi compared with that of the circularly polarized antenna. The gain remains steady in most of operating band within a variation of 1 dBi. It is remarkable that the rotating of the metasurface element has a great influence on the antenna performance, which provides a new explication for the multi-function antenna design.     

An ultra-wideband coding polarizer for beam control and RCS reduction

Pancharatnam−Berry (PB) phase metasurface, as a special class of gradient metasurfaces, has been paid much attention owing to the robust performance for phase control of circularly polarized waves. Herein, we present an element-based polarizer for the first step, which enables the incident electromagnetic waves into the cross-polarized waves with the relative bandwidth of 71%, and the polarization conversion ratio exceeds 90% at 6.9−14.5 GHz. Then an eight-elements coding polarizer based on the PB phase is presented for the applications on beam control and radar cross section reduction. The simulated values indicate that the reduction of radar cross section is more than 10 dB at 6−16 GHz. Our work reveals the availability of manipulating the waves, beamforming in communication systems and electromagnetic stealth, and so on.     

Active dielectric metasurface based on phase‐change medium

We propose all‐dielectric metasurfaces that can be actively re‐configured using the phase‐change material Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST) alloy. With selectively controlled phase transitions on the composing GST elements, metasurfaces can be tailored to exhibit varied functionalities. Using phase‐change GST rod as the basic building block, we have modelled metamolecules with tunable optical response when phase change occurs on select constituent GST rods. Tunable gradient metasurfaces can be realized with variable supercell period consisting of different patterns of the GST rods in their amorphous and crystalline states. Simulation results indicate a range of functions can be delivered, including multilevel signal modulating, near‐field coupling of GST rods, and anomalous reflection angle controlling. This work opens up a new space in exploring active meta‐devices with broader applications that cannot be achieved in their passive counterparts with permanent properties once fabricated.