A fractional phase-coding strategy for terahertz beam patterning on digital metasurfaces

Opt Express. 2020 Mar 2;28(5):6395-6407. doi: 10.1364/OE.385691.

Abstract

Coding metasurfaces have drawn great attention for its digital wave manipulation in deep subwavelength-scale in the last decade, more sophisticated and flexible coding strategies suitable for terahertz wavefront manipulations are becoming more urgently demanded. Due to its rigidity in phase gradient division, both phase gradient metasurfaces and conventional phase coding technique lack the flexibility to expand applications in a large field of view and accurate targeting. This study presents a generalized coding method by precisely reconfiguring the array factor based on the phased array theory and metasurface concept, which can be applied for anomalous scattering and ultrafine radiation patterning. According to our quantitative analysis on the relationship between the deflected angles and the supercell spacing, a fractional coding method for arbitrary phase gradient distribution has been attained by logically discretizing the spacing scale of supercells. By switching on different coding sequences or incident frequencies, a single beam to multiple beam scanning in an expanded angular range with minimal step can be achieved on the fractional phase-coding metasurfaces. As a proof of concept, the 2-bit coding metasurfaces arranged by four fractional coding sequences have been fabricated and measured, demonstrating a consecutive single-beam steering pattern ranging from 22° to 74° in 0.34-0.5 THz. Crosswise verified by the good accordance among numerical prediction, simulation and experiment, the proposed coding strategy paves a path to delicate beam regulation for high-resolution imaging and detection.