While flat metasurfaces are intensively studied, theoretical modelling of conformal metasurfaces appears to be exceptionally challenging where it demands accurate analysis of the metasurface geometry. Here, it is shown how numerical calculation of Green's function can be employed to design conformal sparse metasurfaces of arbitrary geometries within the same framework and without any accommodation. Furthermore, following the presented approach, it can be sufficient to realize only electric response to perform an efficient control of wavefronts that might simplify the design and fabrication of conformal metasurfaces.
We propose a nonlinear acoustic metasurface concept by exploiting the nonlinearity of the locally resonant unit cells formed by curved beams. The analytical model is established to explore the nonlinear phenomenon, specifically the second-harmonic generation (SHG) of the acoustic waveguide and validated through numerical and experimental studies. Novel nonlinear acoustic metasurfaces are developed to demultiplex different frequency components and achieve anomalous wavefront control of SHG in the transmitted region. To this end, we demonstrate wave steering, wave focusing, and self-bending prop…
In this work, we develop the gradient metasurface is constructed of a locally anisotropic resonant structure, comprising a steel cylinder with an elliptical rubber coating embedded in epoxy. The deflective angles of rubber ellipses in the locally anisotropic resonant unit provide a method of controlling the reflected phase. Phase shifts of the reflected wave can cover the 2pi range. With an appropriate design of the phase profiles along the acoustic metasurface, we can achieve anomalous reflection and Bessel beam. The locally anisotropic resonant units have significant potential for engineerin…
This study presents a tunable phase-modulated metasurface composed of periodically distributed piezoelectric patches with resonant-type shunt circuits. The fully coupled electromechanical model is established to study the transmission characteristics of the metasurface unit and validated through numerical and experimental studies. Based on the analysis of the metasurface unit, we first explore the performance of electroelastic metasurface with single-resonant shunts and then extend its capability with multi-resonant shunts. By only tuning the electric loads in the shunt circuits, we utilize th…
We present the study of bound surface modes sustained at the termination of truncated bulk dielectric photonic crystals and isolated metasurfaces of dielectric meta-atoms. We discuss the origins of bound modes in the two systems and their relation. For both systems, we theoretically study and experimentally demonstrate wavefront manipulation, in particular directional emission, frequency splitting and beam collimation achieved by coupling of the bound states to radiation modes through leaky wave radiation mechanism using properly designed scattering gratings.
Controlling the polarization and wavefront of light is essential for compact photonic systems in modern science and technology. This may be achieved by metasurfaces, a new platform that has radically changed the way people engineer wave-matter interactions. However, it still remains very challenging to generate versatile beams with arbitrary and independent wavefronts in each polarization channel by a single ultrathin metasurface. By modulating both the geometric and propagation phases of the metasurface, here we propose a method that can generate an assembly of circularly- and linearly-polari…
In recent years, metasurfaces have shown extremely powerful abilities for manipulation of electromagnetic waves. However, the local electromagnetic response of conventional metasurfaces yields to an intrinsic performance limitation in terms of efficiency, minimizing their implementation in real-life applications. The efficiency of reconfigurable metasurfaces further decreases because of the high density of meta-atoms, reaching 74 meta-atoms per $λ^2$ area, incorporating lossy tunable elements. To address these problems, we implement strong electromagnetic non-local features in a \textit{sparse…
Metasurfaces with planar profile and wave front shaping capabilities would be ideally suitable to improve the performance of acoustic wave-based applications. It is significant that the general Snell's law provides a new approach to engineer the phase profile of reflected acoustic wave. Here, we present a new type of acoustic metasurface based on three-component composites which contain a steel ball coated with a thin elliptical layer of silicone rubber and embedded in epoxy. The acoustic metasurface with changeable radii of steel balls can realize the anomalous reflections, a planar acoustic …
Modulation of metasurfaces in time gives rise to several exotic space-time scattering phenomena by violating the reciprocity and generation of higher-order frequency harmonics. We introduce a new design paradigm for time-modulated metasurfaces, offering electrically tunable engineering of the generated frequency harmonics and their emerging wavefronts by controlling the phase delay in modulation. It is demonstrated that the light acquires a dispersionless phase shift regardless of incident angle and polarization, upon undergoing frequency conversion in a time-modulated metasurface which is lin…
Graded metasurfaces exploit the local momentum imparted by an impedance gradient to transform the impinging wavefront. This approach suffers from fundamental limits on the overall conversion efficiency and it is challenged by fabrication limitations on the maximum spatial resolution. Here, we introduce the concept of meta-gratings, which enables arbitrary wavefront engineering with unitary efficiency and significantly lower demands on the fabrication precision. We employ this concept to design reflective metasurfaces for wavefront steering without limitations on efficiency. A similar approach …
Previously reported acoustic metasurfaces that consist of fixed channels, are untunable to meet the broadband requirement and alterable functionalities. To overcome this limitation, we propose screw-and-nut mechanism of tunability and design a type of continuously tunable acoustic metasurface with unit components of helical cylinders which are screwed into a plate. The spiral channel length can be tuned continuously by the screwed depth; and then a metasurface with continuously tunable acoustic phase at independent pixels is attained. Different distributions of the unit components can shape an…
In this paper, for the first time, a new generation of ultrafast reprogrammable multi-mission bias encoded metasurface is proposed for dynamic THz wavefront engineering by employing VO2 reversible and fast monoclinic to tetragonal phase transition. The multi-functionality of our designed VO2 based coding metasurface (VBCM) was guaranteed by elaborately designed meta-atom comprising three-patterned VO2 thin films whose operational statuses can be dynamically tuned among four states of "00"- "11" by merely changing the biasing voltage controlled by an external FPGA platform. Capitalizing on such…
Actively tunable and reconfigurable wavefront shaping by optical metasurfaces poses a significant technical challenge often requiring unconventional materials engineering and nanofabrication. Most wavefront-shaping metasurfaces can be considered 'local' in that their operation depends on the responses of individual meta-units. In contrast, 'nonlocal' metasurfaces function based on the modes supported by many adjacent meta-units, resulting in sharp spectral features but typically no spatial control of the outgoing wavefront. Recently, nonlocal metasurfaces based on quasi-bound states in the con…
Dielectric metasurfaces provide a unique platform for efficient harmonic generation and optical wavefront manipulation at the nanoscale. Tailoring phase and amplitude of a nonlinearly generated wave with a high emission efficiency using resonance-based metasurfaces is a challenging task which often requires state-of-the-art numerical methods. Here, we propose a simple yet effective approach combining a sampling method with a Monte Carlo approach to design the third-harmonic wavefront generated by all-dielectric metasurfaces composed of elliptical silicon nanodisks. Using this approach, we demo…
The strong interaction of light with micro- and nanostructures plays a critical role in optical sensing, nonlinear optics, active optical devices, and quantum optics. However, for wavefront shaping, the required local control over light at a subwavelength scale limits this interaction, typically leading to low-quality-factor optical devices. Here, we demonstrate an avenue towards high-quality-factor wavefront shaping in two spatial dimensions based on all-dielectric Huygens metasurfaces by leveraging higher-order Mie resonances. We design and experimentally realize transmissive band stop filte…
All-dielectric optical metasurfaces can locally control the amplitude and phase of light at the nanoscale, enabling arbitrary wavefront shaping. However, lack of post-fabrication tunability has limited the true potential of metasurfaces for many applications. Here, we utilize a thin liquid crystal (LC) layer as a tunable medium surrounding the metasurface to achieve a phase-only spatial light modulator (SLM) with high reflection in the visible frequency, exhibiting an active and continuous resonance tuning with associated 2pi phase control and uncoupled amplitude. Dynamic wavefront shaping is …
Dynamically reconfigurable metasurfaces promise compact and lightweight spatial light modulation for many applications, including LiDAR, AR/VR, and LiFi systems. Here, we design and computationally investigate high quality factor silicon-on-lithium niobate metasurfaces with electrically-driven, independent control of its constituent nanobars for full phase tunability with high tuning efficiency. Free-space light couples to guided modes within each nanobar via periodic perturbations, generating quality factors exceeding 30,000, while maintaining bar spacing <$λ$/1.5. We achieve nearly 2$π$ phas…
Towards optimal spatiotemporal wavefront shaping for the cocktail party problem with inverse design of an acoustic reconfigurable metasurface in disordered media
Metasurfaces (MSs) have been utilized to manipulate different properties of electromagnetic waves. By combining local control over the wave amplitude, phase, and polarization into a single tunable structure, a multi-functional and reconfigurable metasurface can be realized, capable of full control over incident radiation. Here, we experimentally validate a multi-functional metasurface architecture for the microwave regime, where in principle variable loads are connected behind the backplane to reconfigurably shape the complex surface impedance. As a proof-of-concept step, we fabricate several …
Recent advances in gradient metasurfaces have shown that only by locally controlling the bianisotropic response of the constituent cells can one ensure full control of refraction, i.e., arbitrarily modify the direction of the incident waves without producing scattering into unwanted directions. In this work, we propose and experimentally verify the use of a new acoustic cell architecture that provides enough degrees of freedom to fully control the bianisotropic response and minimizes the implementation losses produced by resonant elements. The versatility of the approach is shown through the d…
Typical acoustic refractive metasurfaces governed by generalized Snell law require several types of subwavelength subunits to provide an extra phase gradient along the surface. This design strategy, however, has several kinds of drawback. For instance, the inevitable viscous loss brought out by the complex subwavelength subunits, and the negligence of the coupling between adjacent subunits which leads to low-efficiency in wavefront manipulation, especially for large angles. To overcome these limitations, we propose a new type of refractive metasurface composed of only one straight channel and …
In this paper we present the theoretical considerations and the design evolution of a proof-of-concept reconfigurable metasurface, primarily used as a tunable microwave absorber, but also as a wavefront manipulation and polarization conversion device in reflection. We outline the design evolution and all considerations taken into account, from the selection of patch shape, unit cell size, and substrate, to the topology of the structure that realizes the desired tunability. The presented design conforms to fabrication restrictions and is co-designed to work with an integrated circuit chip for p…
We introduce chiral gradient metasurfaces that allow perfect transmission of all the incident wave into a desired direction and simultaneous perfect rotation of the polarization of the refracted wave with respect to the incident one. Besides using gradient polarization densities which provide bending of the refracted wave with respect to the incident one, using metasurface inclusions that are chiral allows the polarization of the refracted wave to be rotated. We suggest a possible realization of the proposed device by discretizing the required equivalent surface polarization densities realized…
Modern electronic systems operate in complex electromagnetic environments and must handle noise and unwanted coupling. The capability to isolate or reject unwanted signals for mitigating vulnerabilities is critical in any practical application. In this work, we describe the use of a binary programmable metasurface to (i) control the spatial degrees of freedom for waves propagating inside an electromagnetic cavity and demonstrate the ability to create nulls in the transmission coefficient between selected ports; and (ii) create the conditions for coherent perfect absorption. Both objectives are…
Programmable metasurfaces incorporated with tunable materials controlled by external stimuli can provide an unprecedented degree of freedom in dynamical wave manipulation in real-time. Beyond the scope of isotropic reconfigurable metasurfaces that only support unique tunable responses for excitation with a certain single-polarization, here, for the first time a new generation of ultrafast reprogrammable multi-functional anisotropic metasurface is reported to enable interchangeable missions independently for two orthogonal linearly polarized THz wavefront excitations. The reconfigurability of t…
Metasurfaces with strongly anisotropic optical properties can support deep subwavelength-scale confined electromagnetic waves (polaritons) that promise opportunities for controlling light in photonic and optoelectronic applications. We develop a mid-infrared hyperbolic metasurface by nanostructuring a thin layer of hexagonal boron nitride supporting deep subwavelength-scale phonon polaritons that propagate with in-plane hyperbolic dispersion. By applying an infrared nanoimaging technique, we visualize the concave (anomalous) wavefronts of a diverging polariton beam, which represent a landmark …
With their self-tuned time-varying responses, waveform-selective metasurfaces embedded with nonlinear electronics have shown fascinating applications, including distinguishing different electromagnetic waves depending on the pulse width. However, thus far they have only been realized with a spatially homogeneous scattering profile. Here, by modeling a metasurface as time-varying admittance sheets, we provide an analytical calculation method to predict the metasurface time-domain responses. This allows derivation of design specifications in the form of equivalent sheet admittance, which is usef…
We conceptualized three-array scalable metasurfaces comprising only three thin strip grids and numerically demonstrated their characteristics in the mid-infrared spectral regime for switchable polarization manipulation and related asymmetric diodelike transmission (AT). A few or all of the grids were taken to be made of VO$_2$, a phase-change material. For each proposed metasurface, two effective structures and, therefore, two different functionalities exist, corresponding to the metallic and insulating phases of VO$_2$. The achieved scenarios of functionality switching that depend on the VO$_…
Although recent advances have made it possible to manipulate electromagnetic and acoustic wavefronts with sub-wavelength metasurface slabs, the design of elastodynamic counterparts remains challenging. We introduce a novel but simple design approach to control SV-waves in elastic solids. The proposed metasurface can be fabricated by cutting an array of aligned parallel cracks in a solid such that the materials between the cracks act as plate-like waveguides in the background medium. The plate array is capable of modulating the phase change of SV-wave while keeping the phase of P-wave unchanged…
In this work we present a new mechanism for designing phase-gradient metasurfaces (PGMs) to control an electromagnetic wavefront with high efficiency. Specifically, we design a transmission-type PGM formed by a periodic subwavelength metallic slit array filled with identical dielectrics of different heights. It is found that when Fabry-Perot (FP) resonances occur locally inside the dielectric regions, in addition to the common phenomenon of complete transmission, the transmitted phase differences between two adjacent slits are exactly the same, being a non-zero constant. These local FP resonan…
Space-time modulated metasurfaces have attracted significant attention due to the additional degree of freedom in manipulating the electromagnetic (EM) waves in both space and time domains. However, the existing techniques have limited wave control capabilities, leading to just a few feasible schemes like regulation of only one specific harmonic. Here, we propose to realize independent manipulations of arbitrarily dual harmonics and their wave behaviors using a space-time-coding (STC) digital metasurface. By employing different STC sequences to the reflection phase of the metasurface, independ…
Auxiliary nanostructures introduce additional flexibility into optomechanical manipulation schemes. Metamaterials and metasurfaces capable to control electromagnetic interactions at the near-field regions are especially beneficial for achieving improved spatial localization of particles, reducing laser powers required for trapping, and for tailoring directivity of optical forces. Here, optical forces acting on small particles situated next to anisotropic substrates, are investigated. A special class of hyperbolic metasurfaces is considered in details and is shown to be beneficial for achieving…
Metasurfaces have shown unprecedented possibilities for wavefront manipulation of waves. The research efforts have been focused on the development of metasurfaces that perform a specific functionality for waves of one physical nature, for example, for electromagnetic waves. In this work, we propose the use of power-flow conformal metamirrors for creation of multiphysics devices which can simultaneously control waves of different nature. In particular, we introduce metasurface devices which perform specified operations on both electromagnetic and acoustic waves at the same time. Using a purely …
Vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) have been widely applied in various electromagnetic, optical, and quantum systems. A tailored OAM spectrum composed of several specific modes as expected holds a promise for expanding the degrees of freedom of the systems. However, such a broadband high-purity tailored spectrum is difficult to be achieved by the present devices, where the broadband amplitude manipulation has not been explored yet. In this work, inspired by the envelope-modulation theory, an elegant and universal way to manipulate the OAM spectrum in wide bandwidth is propose…
Optical metasurfaces (OMSs) have shown unprecedented capabilities for versatile wavefront manipulations at the subwavelength scale, thus opening fascinating perspectives for next generation ultracompact optical devices and systems. However, to date, most well-established OMSs are static, featuring well-defined optical responses determined by OMS configurations set during their fabrication. Dynamic OMS configurations investigated so far by using controlled constituent materials or geometrical parameters often exhibit specific limitations and reduced reconfigurability. Here, by combining a thin-…
On-chip mode-division multiplexing (MDM) has been emerging as a promising technology to further enhance the link capacity and bandwidth of data communications with multiple mode channels. Both mode converters and mode exchangers are indispensable fundamental components for flexible mode operations. While several configurations have been developed previously, it is still very challenging to efficiently manipulate arbitrary high-order modes in a versatile way to reduce the R&D and prototyping costs. Here we initiate a breakthrough with a simple yet universal generic mode operator building block …
Metasurfaces offered great opportunities to control electromagnetic (EM) waves, but currently available meta-devices typically work either in pure reflection or pure transmission mode, leaving half of EM space completely unexplored. Here, we propose a new type of metasurface, composed by specifically designed meta-atoms with polarization-dependent transmission and reflection properties, to efficiently manipulate EM waves in the full space. As a proof of concept, three microwave meta-devices are designed, fabricated and experimentally characterized. The first two can bend or focus EM waves at d…
Zhejiang Key Laboratory of 3D Micro/Nano Fabrication and Characterization, Department of Electronic Science and Engineering, School of Engineering, Westlake University（西湖大学工程学院电子科学与工程系三维微纳加工与表征浙江省重点实验室）；Westlake Center for Micro/Nano Fabrication, Westlake University（西湖大学微纳加工中心）；Eastern Institute of Technology（宁波东方理工大学）
We address the fundamental question of how to optimally probe a scene with electromagnetic (EM) radiation to yield a maximum amount of information relevant to a particular task. Machine learning (ML) techniques have emerged as powerful tools to extract task-relevant information from a wide variety of EM measurements, ranging from optics to the microwave domain. However, given the ability to actively illuminate a particular scene with a programmable EM wavefront, it is often not clear what wavefronts optimally encode information for the task at hand (e.g., object detection, classification). Her…
The manipulation of acoustic waves plays an important role in a wide range of applications. Currently, acoustic wave manipulation typically relies on either acoustic metasurfaces or phased array transducers. The elements of metasurfaces are designed and optimized for a target frequency, which thus limits their bandwidth. Phased array transducers, suffering from high-cost and complex control circuits, are usually limited by the array size and the filling ratio of the control units. In this work, we introduce active coding piezoelectric metasurfaces; demonstrate commonly implemented acoustic wav…
The recently proposed extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) beams with time-varying orbital angular momentum (OAM) realized by high-harmonic generation (HHG) provides extraordinary tools for quantum excitation control and particle manipulation. However, such an approach is not easily scalable to other frequency regimes. Here, we design a space-time-coding digital metasurface operating in microwave frequencies to experimentally generate different modes of time-varying OAM. We also introduce a concept of superhelicity of time-varying OAM with a higher-order twist of the wavefront structure, which can be fur…
