Low-Profile Aperiodic Metasurfaces for High-Efficiency Achromatic Anomalous Reflection Over a Wide Bandwidth

Abstract

Metasurface (MTS) anomalous reflectors can enhance future wireless communication systems due to their ability to redirect electromagnetic waves and establish MTS-assisted communication links. However, MTS reflectors typically suffer from chromatic aberrations with the reflected angle shifting as the frequency varies. Herein, we design achromatic MTSs for anomalous reflection by using an integral-equation framework that fully accounts for the frequency dispersion of the individual scatterers (unit cells). Rather than engineering the dispersion of each MTS cell locally, we harness the emerging near-field interactions (evanescent waves) between the scatterers to realize anomalous reflection at a fixed angle over a wide frequency range. Three anomalous reflectors are designed and experimentally verified at 10 GHz, demonstrating high-performance metrics compared to traditional achromatic reflectors while employing simple, low-profile unit cells. The presented results pave an effective way to realize achromatic wave functionalities, such as anomalous reflection, refraction, or lensing, over a wide bandwidth with low-profile and highly efficient MTSs.