Intelligent Metasurfaces with Continuously Tunable Local Surface Impedance for Multiple Reconfigurable Functions

By Fu Liu, O. Tsilipakos, A. Pitilakis, A. Tasolamprou, M. Mirmoosa, N. Kantartzis, Do-Hoon Kwon, Maria Kafesaki, Costas M. Soukoulis, Sergei A. Tretyakov. Physical Review Applied, 2018

186 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Electromagnetic metasurfaces can be characterized as intelligent if they are able to perform multiple tunable functions, with the desired response being controlled by a computer influencing the individual electromagnetic properties of each metasurface inclusion. In this paper, we present an example of an intelligent metasurface which operates in the reflection mode in the microwave frequency range. We numerically show that without changing the main body of the metasurface we can achieve tunable perfect absorption and tunable anomalous reflection. The tunability features can be implemented using mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs), which can independently vary both the resistance and reactance, offering complete local control over the complex surface impedance. The ICs are embedded in the unit cells by connecting two metal patches over a thin grounded substrate and the reflection property of the intelligent metasurface can be readily controlled by a computer. Our intelligent metasurface can have significant influence on future space-time modulated metasurfaces and a multitude of applications, such as beam steering, energy harvesting, and communications.

Subfields: Aerospace Engineering, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/74b95993c30116cf1421afcccf41c0b9dad01e5e

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In Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

Citations in the corpus

Toward Smart Wireless Communications via Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces: A Contemporary Survey (2019, background): “The integrated circuits (ICs) with continuously tunable load impedance are designed in [46] to control the phase shifts of scattering elements.”
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces vs. Relaying: Differences, Similarities, and Performance Comparison (2019, background): “As discussed, the operating principle of RISs is based on appropriately designing the distribution of the currents induced by the incident waves on their surface, in order to implement the desired function [10]-[12].”
Intelligent Reflecting Surface: Practical Phase Shift Model and Beamforming Optimization (2019, methodology): “2In practice, a positive-intrinsic-negative (PIN) diode, a variable capacitance (varactor) diode, or a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) can be used as the semiconductor device mentioned here [7], [11], [12].”
Smart Radio Environments Empowered by Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces: How It Works, State of Research, and The Road Ahead (2020, unknown): “found in [69].”
Smart Radio Environments Empowered by Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces: How it Works, State of Research, and Road Ahead (2020, background): “A recent approach to design metasurfaces with multiple reconfigurable functions can be found in [69].”
Physics-Based Modeling and Scalable Optimization of Large Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (2020, background): “[5], [26], [27] for various implementations of the tunable chip.”