Design of programmable beam splitting metasurface

AbstractMetasurface has been applied as one critical platform for electromagnetic modulation devices. Here, a programmable metasurface loaded with positive-intrinsic negative (PIN) diodes is proposed to realize dynamic switching of arbitrary multi-beam. Furthermore, the multi-beam coding sequence is optimized by a genetic algorithm (GA) to achieve dual- to nine-beam with different scattering directions. As a proof of concept, a programmable metasurface prototype that operates around 8 GHz is designed and fabricated to be tested in far-field measurements. The beam splitter has been verified by theoretical analysis and numerical simulation to have a power efficiency of over 70%. In the measurement system, multi-beam splitting phenomena are obtained using DC control of the PIN diodes “on” and “off”, which is consistent with the simulation results. The proposed beam splitter can be designed with real-time multi-beam switching and intelligently provides coding sequences with multiple directive angles, thus providing potential benefits for next-generation antennas.KEYWORDS: Programmable metasurfaceintelligent optimizationbeam splitterdynamic control Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availabilityData underlying the results presented in this paper are available from the authors upon reasonable request.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number: 12273012].Notes on contributorsShaochen LiLi Shaochen, College of Information Technology, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.Teng YanTeng Yan, College of Information Technology, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.Xiao YuhuaXiao Yuhua, College of Information Technology, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.Li ChunLi Chun, College of Information Technology, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.Bian BoruiBian Borui, College of Information Technology, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.Juan YueJuan Yue, College of Information Technology, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.Jiang LingJiang Ling* received the B.E. degree from Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China, in 2001, and the Ph.D. degree from Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China, in 2007. She is currently a Professor at the College of Information Technology, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China. Her research interests include Electromagnetic Metamaterials, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and terahertz spectroscopy and imaging applications. e-mail: jiangling@njfu.edu.cn