Virtual metasurfaces: reshaping electromagnetic waves in distance

Abstract

Metasurface has provided unprecedented freedoms in manipulating electromagnetic (EM) waves, exhibiting fascinating functions. Conventionally, these functions are implemented right on metasurfaces, where spatial modulations on EM wave amplitudes or phases are achieved by meta-atoms. This study proposes the concept of virtual metasurface (VM), which is formed by arrays of foci away from the entity metasurface. Unlike conventional metasurfaces, spatial modulations on the amplitudes or phases of EM waves occur in the air, with a focal length distance from the entity metasurface. As a proof of concept, we demonstrated a transmissive VM. The entity metasurface consists of transmissive focusing metasurface tiles (TFMTs) with the same focal length. Two TFMTs were designed with phase difference π to enable the most typical checkerboard configuration. The TFMTs were assembled to form the entity metasurface, whereas their foci formed the VM. Due to the π phase difference among adjacent foci, EM propagation along the normal direction was cancelled, leading to four tilted far-field beams. The concept of VM can be readily extended to higher frequencies from terahertz to optical regimes and may find wide applications in communication, camouflage, and other fields.