Smart sensing metasurface with self-defined functions in dual polarizations

Qian Ma,Qiao Ru Hong,Qiang Cheng,Xin Xin Gao,Guo Dong Bai,Hong Bo Jing,Tie Jun Cui,Che Liu

doi:10.1515/nanoph-2020-0052

Abstract

Abstract For the intelligence of metamaterials, the -sensing mechanism and programmable reaction units are two important components for self-recognition and -determination. However, their realization still face great challenges. Here, we propose a smart sensing metasurface to achieve self-defined functions in the framework of digital coding metamaterials. A sensing unit that can simultaneously process the sensing channel and realize phase-programmable capability is designed by integrating radio frequency (RF) power detector and PIN diodes. Four sensing units distributed on the metasurface aperture can detect the microwave incidences in the x- and y-polarizations, while the other elements can modulate the reflected phase patterns under the control of a field programmable gate array (FPGA). To validate the performance, three schemes containing six coding patterns are presented and simulated, after which two of them are measured, showing good agreements with designs. We envision that this work may motivate studies on smart metamaterials with high-level recognition and manipulation.

Highlights

Metamaterials are artificial structures of periodic or nonperiodic arrays with subwavelength unit cells, which can be engineered to obtain compelling electromagnetic (EM) properties [1,2,3] by means of effective permittivity and permeability that do not exist in nature, such as negative permittivity, negative permeability and negative index of refraction
Four sensing units distributed on the metasurface aperture can detect the microwave incidences in the x- and y-polarizations, while the other elements can modulate the reflected phase patterns under the control of a field programmable gate array (FPGA)
We propose a smart sensing metasurface, which evolved from the phase-programmable metasurface, with selfrecognitions and manipulations on the reflecting phase patterns on dual polarizations

Summary

Introduction

Metamaterials are artificial structures of periodic or nonperiodic arrays with subwavelength unit cells, which can be engineered to obtain compelling electromagnetic (EM) properties [1,2,3] by means of effective permittivity and permeability that do not exist in nature, such as negative permittivity, negative permeability and negative index of refraction. Numerous novel applications have been proposed, including perfect imaging [4], super lens [5] and invisibility cloaking [6]. To explore the connection between physical fields and information science, the concepts of digital-coding metasurfaces and programmable metasurfaces have been proposed [7], opening up a new perspective for digital representation [8, 9] and informational operations [10,11,12] on the physical world with metamaterials. Due to the superior performance and concise architecture, the digital-coding metasurfaces have realized various applications on space-time modulations [17, 18], c ommunication [19, 20] and imaging [21, 22]

Methods

Results

Conclusion