A Review of Metasurfaces: Physics and Applications

Review Article
A review of metasurfaces: physics and applications
Hou-Tong Chen1 , Antoinette J Taylor2 and Nanfang Yu3

arXiv:1605.07672v1 [physics.optics] 24 May 2016
1 Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los

Alamos, NM 87545, USA
2 Associate Directorate for Chemistry, Life, and Earth Sciences, Los Alamos
National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA

3 Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia
University, New York, NY 10027, USA

E-mail: chenht@lanl.gov, ttaylor@lanl.gov, ny2214@columbia.edu
26 May 2016
Abstract. Metamaterials are composed of periodic subwavelength metal/dielectric

structures that resonantly couple to the electric and/or magnetic components of
the incident electromagnetic fields, exhibiting properties that are not found in na-
ture. This class of micro- and nano-structured artificial media have attracted great
interest during the past 15 years and yielded ground-breaking electromagnetic and
photonic phenomena. However, the high losses and strong dispersion associated
with the resonant responses and the use of metallic structures, as well as the dif-
ficulty in fabricating the micro- and nanoscale 3D structures, have hindered prac-
tical applications of metamaterials. Planar metamaterials with subwavelength
thickness, or metasurfaces, consisting of single-layer or few-layer stacks of planar
structures, can be readily fabricated using lithography and nanoprinting methods,
and the ultrathin thickness in the wave propagation direction can greatly suppress
the undesirable losses. Metasurfaces enable a spatially varying optical response
(e.g., scattering amplitude, phase, and polarization), mold optical wavefronts into
shapes that can be designed at will, and facilitate the integration of functional
materials to accomplish active control and greatly enhanced nonlinear response.
This paper reviews recent progress in the physics of metasurfaces operating at
wavelengths ranging from microwave to visible. We provide an overview of key
metasurface concepts such as anomalous reflection and refraction, and introduce
metasurfaces based on the Pancharatnam-Berry phase and Huygens’ metasur-
faces, as well as their use in wavefront shaping and beam forming applications,
followed by a discussion of polarization conversion in few-layer metasurfaces and
their related properties. An overview of dielectric metasurfaces reveals their abil-
ity to realize unique functionalities coupled with Mie resonances and their low
ohmic losses. We also describe metasurfaces for wave guidance and radiation
control, as well as active and nonlinear metasurfaces. Finally, we conclude by
providing our opinions of opportunities and challenges in this rapidly developing
research field.
A review of metasurfaces: physics and applications 2
Contents
1 Introduction 3
2 Anomalous reflection and refraction 4

2.1 Generalized laws of reflection and refraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Demonstration of generalized optical laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3 Arbitrary phase gradient and beam forming 6

3.1 Metasurfaces based on Pancharatnam-Berry phase . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2 Huygens’ surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3 Wavefront shaping and beam forming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4 Polarization conversion 12
4.1 Linear-to-circular polarization conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2 Linear polarization rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.3 Asymmetric transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5 Dielectric metasurfaces 18
5.1 Dielectric resonators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.2 Directional scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.3 Beam forming and wavefront control enabled by dielectric metasurfaces 21
6 Metasurfaces for wave guidance and radiation 22

6.1 Coupling between free space and surface waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.2 Control of surface waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7 Active metasurfaces 27
7.1 Actively switchable and frequency tunable metal/semiconductor hybrid
metasurfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
7.2 Graphene hybrid metasurfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
7.3 Other resonance switchable and frequency tunable metasurfaces . . . 32
7.4 Nonlinear metasurfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
8 Summary and outlook 35

1. Introduction Another challenge in metamaterials is the difficult

micro- and nano-fabrication of the required three-
Optical devices control and manipulate light by alter- dimensional (3D) structures [11], as permittivity,
ing its amplitude, phase, and polarization states in permeability and refractive index are essentially
a desired manner, which result in steering the beam properties of bulk materials. Planar metamaterials,
propagation direction, shaping the wavefront (e.g., fo- however, can be readily fabricated using existing
cusing), and imparting information for applications technologies such as lithography and nanoprinting
such as sensing, imaging and communication. Con- methods, driving many metamaterial researchers to
ventional optical components are based on refraction, focus on single-layer or few-layer stacks of planar
reflection, absorption, and/or diffraction of light, and structures that are more accessible particularly in the
light manipulation is achieved via propagation through optical regime. They are called metasurfaces and can
media of given refractive indices, which can be engi- be considered as the two-dimensional (2D) equivalent
neered to control the optical path of light beams. In of bulk metamaterials. Because the subwavelength
this way, phase, amplitude, and polarization changes thickness introduces minimal propagation phase, the
are accumulated through propagation in optical com- effective permittivity, permeability and refractive
ponents based on refraction and reflection, such as index are of less interest in metasurfaces. In contrast,
lenses, waveplates, and optical modulators. Ancient of significant importance are the surface or interface
people already used ice lenses to focus sunlight and reflection and transmission resulting from the tailored
start fires [1], one example of controlling light prop- surface impedance, including their amplitude, phase,
agation. They still prevail in today’s optical labora- and polarization states. The ultrathin thickness in
tories and many consumer-based optical products, but the wave propagation direction can greatly suppress
are bulky and heavy, unsuitable for the increasingly de- the undesirable losses by using appropriately chosen
manding requirements of integration and miniaturiza- materials and metasurface structures. Overall,
tion in modern electromagnetic and photonic systems. metasurfaces can overcome the challenges encountered
The propagation effect is also used in transformation in bulk metamaterials while their interactions with the
optics [2, 3], which utilizes optical materials structured incident waves can be still sufficiently strong to obtain
on a subwavelength scale to produce spatially varying very useful functionalities. For this reason, we envision
refractive indices that can range from positive to neg- that metasurfaces will dominate the general field of
ative. metamaterials research given their high potential in
Metamaterials are composed of periodic subwave- applications.
length metal/dielectric structures (i.e., meta-atoms) Metasurfaces diminish our dependence on the
that resonantly couple to the electric or magnetic or propagation effect by introducing abrupt changes
both components of the incident electromagnetic fields, in optical properties [12–14]. At microwave and
exhibiting effective electric (represented by electric per- terahertz (THz) frequencies, one can take advantage
mittivity ) and/or magnetic (represented by magnetic of subwavelength metallic resonators such as split-ring
permeability µ) response not found in nature. This resonators (SRRs) [15, 16] and a variety of elements
class of micro- and nano-structured artificial media typically used in frequency selective surfaces [17].
have attracted great interest during the past 15 years Abrupt and controllable changes of optical properties
and yielded ground-breaking electromagnetic and pho- are achieved by engineering the interaction between
tonic phenomena [4, 5]. Their electromagnetic proper- light and an array of optical scatterers called “optical
ties are mainly determined by the subwavelength struc- antennas” [18, 19], which can take a variety of
tures together with the integrated functional materials, forms, including metallic or dielectric micro/nano-
therefore, producing the desirable electromagnetic re- particles [20,21], apertures formed in metallic films [22,
sponse and device functionalities by structural engi- 23], and their multi-layer structures [24]. The most
neering. The initial overwhelming interest in metama- critical feature of metasurfaces is that they provide
terials lies in the realization of simultaneously negative degrees of freedom in designing spatial inhomogeneity
electric and magnetic responses and, thereby, negative over an optically thin interface. Arrays of antennas
refractive index [6,7], which can be used to accomplish with subwavelength separation between adjacent
superresolution in optical imaging [8,9]. The capability elements can have spatially varying structural features
of tailoring inhomogeneous and anisotropic refractive or material compositions. Thus, metasurfaces are able
index resulted in electromagnetic invisibility [10], an- to introduce a spatially varying electromagnetic or
other hallmark accomplishment using metamaterials. optical response (i.e., scattering amplitude, phase, and
These promising potential applications are, however, polarization), and mold wavefronts into shapes that
hindered in practice due to the high losses and strong can be designed at will.
dispersion associated with the resonant responses and As metasurfaces comprise a rapidly growing field
the use of metallic structures.
of research, there have been a few good review to effectively control the direction of wave propagation
articles focusing on different areas [25–31]. Here and the shape of wavefront.
we provide our perspective on this research field by
reviewing the progress during the past few years,
where metasurfaces are broadly defined as planar
metamaterial structures with subwavelength thickness,
operating at wavelengths ranging from microwave to
visible. The paper is organized as described below.
In section 2 we overview the concept and provide
demonstrations of anomalous reflection and refraction,
which have largely stimulated and reformed worldwide
research interest in metasurfaces. In section 3 we
introduce metasurfaces based on the Pancharatnam-
Berry phase and Huygens’ metasurfaces, as well as
their use in wavefront shaping and beam forming
applications. In section 4 we review polarization
conversion in few-layer metasurfaces and their related
properties. This section is followed by an overview
in section 5 of dielectric metasurfaces that not only
reduce the ohmic losses in metallic metasurfaces
but also realize some other unique properties and
functionalities. In section 6 we describe metasurfaces Figure 1. A gradient of interfacial phase jump dΦ/dr provides
for wave guidance and radiation control. We an effective wavevector along the interface that can bend
also summarize active and nonlinear metasurfaces in transmitted and reflected light into arbitrary directions.
section 7, and in the last section we provide concluding
remarks and an outlook on future research directions. We can understand quantitatively the control of
wave propagation direction using Fermat’s principle,
which states that the route for the propagation
2. Anomalous reflection and refraction
of a light beam should be stationary in the total
2.1. Generalized laws of reflection and refraction accumulated phase with respect to small variations
of the route. Now we consider a specific case where
When a plane electromagnetic wave encounters a a metasurface introduces a spatial distribution of
boundary between two homogeneous media with phase jumps due to electromagnetic scattering at its
different refractive indices, it is split into a reflected constitutive antennas. The actual optical path in the
beam that propagates back to the first medium presence of these phase jumps should be stationary
and a transmitted beam that proceeds into the in the total accumulated optical phase. This law of
second medium. The reflection and transmission stationary phase ensures that wavelets starting from
coefficients and their directions are determined by a source point with the same initial phase will arrive
the continuity of field components at the boundary, at the point of destination in phase after reflecting
and are given by the Fresnel equations and Snell’s from or transmitting through the metasurface, and
law, respectively. If we add to the interface thus constructively interfere, which makes the route
an array of subwavelength resonators of negligible a physical path of optical power. A set of generalized
thickness forming a metasurface, the reflection and laws of refraction and reflection can be derived from
transmission coefficients will be then dramatically Fermat’s principle of stationary phase [12, 13, 32]:
changed because the boundary conditions are modified (
by the resonant excitation of an effective current within nt sin(θt ) − ni sin(θi ) = k10 dΦ
dx
(1)
the metasurface. The reflection and transmission cos(θt ) sin(ϕt ) = nt1k0 dΦ
dy
waves carry a phase change that can vary from −π (
to π, depending on the wavelength of the incident sin(θr ) − sin(θi ) = ni1k0 dΦ
dx
wave relative to the metasurface resonance. When (2)
cos(θr ) sin(ϕr ) = nr1k0 dΦ
dy
the resonators are anisotropic, the polarization state
may be also altered. When the phase change is where the definition of angles is shown in figure 1, and
uniform along the interface, the directions of reflection dΦ/dx and dΦ/dy are, respectively, the components of
and refraction are unaltered; in contrast, one of the the phase gradient parallel and perpendicular to the
merits provided by metasurfaces is that we can create plane of incidence. Looking at the problem from an
spatial phase variation with subwavelength resolution alternative point of view, the interfacial phase gradient
functions as an effective wavevector along the interface, 2π range, which is necessary for complete control of the
and is imparted to the transmitted and reflected waves. wavefront. In addition to metallic antennas, dielectric
The above generalized laws can thus be derived by ones are also able to introduce phase variations to
considering the conservation of wavevector along the the scattered light associated with Mie resonances
interface. These generalized laws indicate that the (i.e., establishment of standing wave patterns in the
transmitted and reflected light beams can be bent dielectric antennas, see the discussion of dielectric
in arbitrary directions in their respective half space, metasurfaces in section 5).
depending on the direction and magnitude of the Generalized optical laws were first demonstrated
interfacial phase gradient, as well as the refractive using V-shaped optical antennas in the mid-infrared
indices of the surrounding media. spectral range [12] and later confirmed in the near-
infrared [13] (see figure 2). Such optically anisotropic
2.2. Demonstration of generalized optical laws antennas support two plasmonic eigenmodes with
different resonant properties. The geometry and
To experimentally demonstrate the generalized laws, orientation of antennas in the array are properly
one has to devise miniature scatterers that are able to chosen so that for an incident wave at around 8 µm
controllably change the phase of the scattered waves wavelength, over a wide range of incident angles,
and to place such scatterers into an array, forming an and polarized along the x -axis (see figure 2(a)), the
artificial interface. The scattering amplitudes should component of the scattered wave polarized along the y-
be the same for all scatterers and the spacing between axis has an incremental phase of π/4 between adjacent
neighboring scatterers in the array should be much less V-antennas in the unit cell of the metasurface. The
than the wavelength. These conditions ensure that the amplitude of the component polarized along the y-axis
superposition of spherical waves emanating from the is also tuned to be uniform across the antenna array.
scatterers gives rise to refracted and reflected waves The antenna spacing is between one tenth and one
with planar wavefronts, following Huygens’ principle. fifth of the free space wavelength. The metasurface
One approach to design the phase response of creates anomalously refracted and reflected beams
scatterers is to use antenna dispersion. That is, for satisfying the generalized laws over a wide wavelength
a fixed electromagnetic wavelength and a variation of range, with negligible spurious beams and optical
antenna geometries, or for a fixed antenna geometry background, as shown in figure 2(b) and (d). The
and a variation of excitation wavelengths, there is an broadband performance is due to the fact that the
associated phase variation of the waves scattered from two eigenmodes supported by the V-antennas form
the antenna (there are also associated amplitude and a broad effective resonance over which the scattering
polarization changes that can be utilized or otherwise efficiency is nearly constant and the phase response
managed for designing metasurfaces). For example, is approximately linear [33, 34]. The scalability of
when a beam of light impinges on a metallic optical metasurfaces allows the extension of this concept to
antenna, the optical energy is coupled into surface other frequency ranges, e.g., broadband anomalous
electromagnetic waves propagating back and forth refraction was also demonstrated at THz frequencies
along the antenna surface. These are accompanied using C-shaped metallic resonators [35]
by charge oscillations inside the antenna. These The generalized law of reflection has also been
coupled surface electromagnetic waves and oscillating demonstrated using reflect-arrays [14, 36, 37], which
charges are known as surface plasmons. For a fixed consist of metallic antennas separated from a back
excitation wavelength, the antenna resonance occurs metallic plane by a thin layer of dielectric material (see
when the antenna length Lres ≈ λ/2, where λ is the figure 3). Such reflect-array metasurfaces are inspired
surface plasmon wavelength; under this condition the by initial work on microwave and millimeter wave
incident electromagnetic wave is in phase with the reflect-array antennas [38, 39]. Figure 3(a) shows a
excited antenna current. When the antenna length near-infrared reflect-array metasurface based on patch
is smaller or larger than Lres , the current leads or antennas and figure 3(c) shows one that is based on
lags the driving field. Therefore, the phase of the H-shaped antennas for microwaves. The essence of
antenna current and the phase of electromagnetic reflect-arrays is to use antennas coupled with their
waves created by the oscillating current (i.e., scattered dipolar images in the back mirror to achieve a phase
waves from the antenna) can be controlled by choosing coverage of 2π. Ideally, all incident power will be
the appropriate antenna length. The tuning range coupled into anomalous reflection, which will have the
of phase is up to π if a single antenna resonance is same polarization as that of the incident light; the
involved. Multiple independent resonances, coupled transmission and specular reflection will be absent.
antenna resonances, or geometric effects (see discussion Experimentally demonstrated efficiency in generating
of the Pancharatnam-Berry phase in section 3.1) are anomalous reflection in reflect-array metasurface is as
able to extend the phase response to cover the entire
(b)
(a)
(d)
(c)
Figure 2. (a) SEM image of a mid-infrared metasurface consisting of an array of V-shaped gold optical antennas patterned on a
silicon wafer, with the unit cell highlighted and Γ = 11 µm. It creates a constant gradient of phase jump along the metasurface
for the control of the propagation direction of light transmitted through or reflected from the metasurface. (b) Under normal
incidence, measured far-field intensity profiles show the ordinary (co-polarized) and anomalous (cross-polarized) refraction generated
by metasurfaces like the one shown in (a) and with different interfacial phase gradients (from 2π/13-µm to 2π/17-µm). The far-field
profiles are normalized with respect to the intensity of the ordinary beams located at θt = 0◦ . The arrows indicate the calculated
angular positions of the anomalous refraction according to θt = − arcsin(λ/Γ). (c) A metasurface used to demonstrate generalized
laws of reflection and refraction in the near-infrared. Upper panel depicts one unit cell of the fabricated structure and lower panel
reveals a schematic of the metasurface. (d) Measured far-field intensity profiles of the metasurface in (c) showing reflection angle θr
versus wavelength for cross-polarized light with 65◦ incidence angle. (a) used with permission from [12], (b) used with permission
from [33], (c) and (d) reproduced with permission from [13].
high as 80%, significantly higher than the initial proof- been also demonstrated. For example, birefringent
of-principle demonstrations in figure 2, which are based reflect-array metasurfaces that steer incident light
on a single antenna layer, rely on polarization rotation into different directions according to its polarization
to achieve the 2π phase coverage, and have an efficiency state have been demonstrated in simulations [37] (see
of 10-20%. figure 3(e) and (f)).
Figure 3(b) shows three regimes of operation for a
reflect-array metasurface: negative angle of reflection 3. Arbitrary phase gradient and beam forming
(θr and θi of different signs), angle of incidence and
angle of reflection of the same sign but not equal 3.1. Metasurfaces based on Pancharatnam-Berry
to each other, and coupling of incident light into phase
evanescent waves propagating on the metasurface (θr
beyond 90◦ ). In the last case, the interaction between In the previous examples, variations in phase or
the incident light and the metasurface leads to a amplitude response are introduced by the dispersion
lateral wavevector that is larger than the free space of antenna resonance. A completely different approach
wavevector; as a result, no reflection exists and the to introducing phase jumps is to use the so-called
incident optical power can only be coupled into surface Pancharatnam-Berry phase [40, 41]. The latter
waves. The work shown in figure 3(c) and (d) confirms is associated with polarization change and can be
the existence of such surface waves by experimentally created by using anisotropic, subwavelength scatterers
measuring their near-field characteristics. A number with identical geometric parameters but spatially
of variations of the reflect-array metasurface have varying orientations. The recent development of
(a) (b)
(c) ξ = 1.14k0 (d)

180 Model
FDTD
Φ (°)
0
-180
0 20 40
z x (mm)
y
(f)
x
(e)
y
2 μm
x
Figure 3. (a) Schematic of a near-infrared reflect-array metasurface consisting of gold patch antennas separated from a gold back
plane by a MgF2 spacer with subwavelength thickness. Left inset shows a basic building block, and right inset is an SEM image
of part of the metasurface. (b) Anomalous reflections at different incident angles for the metasurface shown in (a). The shaded
quadrant indicates “negative” reflection. (c) Photograph of a fabricated microwave reflect-array consisting of H-antennas separated
from a metallic back plane by a dielectric spacer. The reflect-array introduces an interfacial phase gradient ξ = 1.14k0 , where k0
is the wavevector of the incident beam corresponding to a wavelength of 2 cm. (d) Scattering phase profile from the metasurface
in (c) showing the phase gradient along the x -direction. (e) Schematic of part of a birefringent reflect-array metasurface working
at λ = 8.06 µm. (f) Depending on the polarization of the incident light, the phase gradient is either positive or negative along
the x -direction for the metasurface in (e), leading to polarization-dependent anomalous reflection. (a) and (b) reproduced with
permission from [36], (c) and (d) used with permission from [14], (e) and (f) used with permission from [37].
metasurfaces based on Pancharatnam-Berry phase has scatterer,

been largely following the innovative early works by
cos(α) sin(α)

Hasman and co-workers [42], who used continuous R̂(α) = (4)
− sin(α) cos(α)
or discrete subwavelength gratings to control the
polarization states for the generation of vector beams is the rotation matrix and α is the rotation
and manipulation of wavefronts. The easiest way to angle. Given an incident wave of right/left circular
R/L
reveal the relation between polarization and phase is polarization EI , the scattered light from the
R/L
to use Jones calculus [43, 44]. In general, the Jones anisotropic scatterer in the forward direction ET can
matrix of an anisotropic scatterer can be written as then be written as [45]:

to 0 ET
R/L
= M̂ · EI
R/L
M̂ = R̂(−α) R̂(α), (3)
0 te to + te R/L to − te L/R
where to and te are, respectively, the coefficients of = EI + exp(im2α)EI . (5)
2 2
forward scattering for incident light linearly polarized The first term represents circularly polarized scattered
along the two principal axes of the anisotropic waves with the same handedness as the incident
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
(e)
Figure 4. (a) Upper panel: schematic of the super-unit-cell of a metasurface consisting of an array of identical U-shaped apertures
with gradually increasing rotation angles. Lower panels: simulation rusults showing that the metasurface in (a) bends a circularly
polarized incident beam under normal incidence into left or right direction according to the handedness of the incident beam. (b)
Upper panel: super-unit-cell of a planar cylindrical lens consisting of an array of identical U-apertures with different orientations.
Lower panels: schematics and simulation results showing that the lens focuses right-handed circularly polarized transmission
component when the incident light is left-handed circularly polarized, and that the same lens defocuses left-handed circularly polarized
transmission component when the incident light is right-handed circularly polarized. (c) SEM image of a metasurface consisting of
an array of gold rod antennas with identical geometry but spatially varying orientations, which is designed for generating an optical
vortex beam with L = 1 (incidence: right-handed circularly polarized; detection: left-handed circularly polarized). (d) Measured
intensity distribution of vortex beams generated by the metasurface in (c) at different wavelengths from 670 to 1100 nm. (e) Pioncaré
sphere used to derive the phase difference between scattered waves of left-handed circular polarization from rod antennas located at
points A and B in (c), with right-handed circularly polarized incident light. (a) and (b) reproduced with permission from [45], (c)
and (d) reproduced with permission from [46].
light, and the second term represents circularly figure 4(b). A broadband phase plate generating
polarized scattered waves with opposite handedness optical vortex beams has been demonstrated by using
and an additional Pancharatnam-Berry phase of m2α, an array of rod antennas with different orientations
where m is ‘−’ for right-handed and ‘+’ for left- (figure 4(c) and (d)) [46]. A bi-layer metallic aperture
handed circularly polarized incident light. The second metasurface was also demonstrated to accomplish the
component can be selected in experiments by using simultaneous manipulation of polarization and phase
a quarter-wave plate and a polarizer. Its phase of the transmitted light [47].
can cover the entire 2π range if the anisotropic The metasurfaces based on the Pancharatnam-
scatterer is rotated from 0 to 180◦ . Based on Berry phase work for circularly polarized incident
this principle, a phase-gradient metasurface has been light and control the component of the circularly
demonstrated to steer light into different directions polarized transmission with the opposite handedness.
depending on the handedness of the incident circular A major advantage of the approach based on
polarization (see figure 4(a)) [45]. The unit cell the Pancharatnam-Berry phase is ultra-broadband
of the metasurface consists of U-shaped aperture performance: given a certain antenna geometry, the
antennas with an incremental angle of rotation magnitude of the phase jump is only a function of
between adjacent elements, with the total rotation the orientation angle of the antenna and the sign
angle being 180◦ within the unit cell. Similar U- of the phase jump is determined by the handedness
shaped aperture antennas have been used to create of the incident circularly polarized light; there is no
a planar lens, which either functions as a focusing wavefront distortion resulting from antenna dispersion.
or diverging lens depending on the handedness of The operating bandwidth is limited on the long-
the incident circular polarization [45], as shown in wavelength side by reduced scattering efficiency and
on the short-wavelength side by the requirement that 3.2. Huygens’ surfaces

the wavelength has to be at least several times larger
To boost the efficiency of a metasurface in controlling
than the spacing between scatterers (i.e., metasurface
the transmitted light, one has to match its impedance
regime). In early demonstrations of broadband
with that of free space. Complete elimination of
metasurfaces based on Pancharatnam-Berry phase,
reflection can be realized by controlling the surface
the presence of scattered waves that do not carry
electric and magnetic polarizabilities, αe and αm , of
Pancharatnam-Berry phase inevitably decreases their
the metasurfaces so that [52]
efficiency. In a new generation of metasurfaces, Luo et p
al. were able to suppress these scattered components αm /αe = η0 , (6)
and created metasurfaces based on Pancharatnam-
where η0 is the impedance of the surrounding media.
Berry phase with efficiency approaching unity [48].
The effective electric and magnetic surface currents,
They demonstrated two different metasurfaces that
which are proportional to αe and αm , respectively,
separate a linearly polarized incident microwave into
change the boundary conditions at the metasurface and
a left-handed circularly polarized beam and a right-
lead to the new scattered wavefronts. The complex
handed circularly polarized beam over a frequency
transmission coefficient of the metasurface is [52]
range of 11–14 GHz, within which the linearly
polarized background is very weak. The metasurface 2 − jωαe η0
T = . (7)
design is based on rigorous Jones matrix analyses that 2 + jωαe η0
provide a set of criteria for achieving 100% efficiency If αe is predominantly real, one can vary αe and
[48]. αm simultaneously at each point on the metasurface
A completely different perspective to under- to ensure that the waves transmitted through the
stand the operation of metasurfaces based on the metasurface acquire a phase jump anywhere from −π
Pancharatnam-Berry phase results from tracing the to +π according to (7) and that the transmission
evolution of polarization in the Poincaré sphere [40,49– efficiency is close to unity by satisfying (6) everywhere
51]. The phase difference between the scattered waves on the metasurface. The above design concept has been
from any two points on the metasurface is equal to the implemented in the microwave spectral region by using
solid angle enclosed by their corresponding traces in spatially varying copper traces supporting both electric
the Poincaré sphere divided by two [49]. For exam- and magnetic polarization currents (figure 5(a)) [52].
ple, the solid red trace in figure 4(e) corresponds to A transmission efficiency of 86% was experimentally
light passing through point A in figure 4(c): The trace demonstrated in a beam deflector shown in figure 5(b).
starts at north pole of the Poincaré sphere represent- Although the demonstrations are in the microwave
ing right-handed circularly polarized incident light; the regime, the concepts can be adapted to the optical
trace passes a point on the equator that represents lin- regime and one example is shown in figure 5(c) and
ear polarization in the vertical direction because the (d) [53]. Another metasurface that is impedance
antenna at point A on the metasurface preferentially matched to free space and able to fully control the
scatters vertically polarized waves; the trace ends at phase of the transmitted light was proposed in a recent
the south pole because left-handed circularly polar- paper [54]. It is designed based on optical nano-
ized transmission is selectively monitored. Similarly, circuit concepts and is comprised of three planarized
the dashed red trace in figure 4(e) corresponds to light arrays stacked together, as shown in figure 5(e), where
passing through point B on the metasurface shown in the building blocks of the array are subwavelength
figure 4(c). The solid angle enclosed by the two traces components made of metallic and dielectric materials
is π; therefore the phase difference between left-handed with different filling ratios and function as LC nano-
circularly polarized light scattering from points A and circuit elements. A beam deflector and a flat lens
B on the metasurface is π/2. Similar analyses show with high transmission efficiency were demonstrated
that the phase difference between points A and C is π in simulations, as shown in figure 5(f) and (g), by
and between A and D is 3π/2. Therefore, the metasur- engineering the effective surface impedance of the
face in figure 4(c) introduces a constant phase gradient metasurface via tuning of the filling ratios.
in the azimuthal direction and the phase variation is
2π during one circle around the central point of the 3.3. Wavefront shaping and beam forming
metasurface. The metasurface thus imprints a spiral
phase distribution to the transmitted wavefront, creat- Metasurfaces provide us with an unprecedented
ing a vortex beam with orbital angular momentum of opportunity to design the wavefronts of light at will,
L = 1. as we have seen from the descriptions of anomalous
reflection/refraction and beam focusing in the previous
sections. Figure 6 further shows a few planar devices
Figure 5. (a) Upper panel: photograph of a fabricated microwave metasurface that can redirect an incident beam with nearly
100% efficiency into a refracted beam. It is made of a stack of identical circuit board stripes, the top and bottom sides of which
are printed with copper traces. Bottom panel: one unit cell of the metasurface consists of capacitively and inductively loaded
traces to realize desired electric sheet reactance (on the top side of each stripe) and capacitively loaded loops to realize desired
magnetic sheet reactance (on the bottom side of each stripe). (b) Measured magnetic field distribution of the beam-deflecting
metasurface in (a). (c) Schematic of an optically thin, isotropic Huygens’ metasurface that efficiently refracts a normally incident
beam at telecommunication wavelengths. Inset: schematic of a unit cell. (d) Simulated electric field distribution of a beam deflector
based on the metasurface in (c).(e) Left panel: basic building block of a metasurface made of plasmonic (AZO: aluminum-doped
zinc oxide) and dielectric (silicon) materials, with l = 250 nm and h = 250 nm. Right panel: metatransmit-array made of three
stacked metasurfaces with center-center distance of d = λ0 /8 = 375 nm. (f) and (g) Simulated electric field distributions of a beam
deflector and a flat lens based on the metatransmit-array shown in (e). (a) and (b) reproduced with permission from [52], (c) and
(d) reproduced with permission from [53], (e)–(g) used with permission from [54].
based on metasurfaces. To realize flat lenses, a in their complementary V-antennas according to Babi-
metasurface should impose a phase profile net’s principle; they have been used to demonstrate flat
2π p 2 lenses to focus visible light (figure 6(c) and (d)) [58]
ϕL (x, y) = x + y2 + f 2 − f (8) and THz waves [59], with one of the advantages being
λ
to convert incident planar wavefronts into spherical significant suppression of the background light.
ones, which converge at a distance f from the lenses. Based on the Pancharatnam-Berry phase, U-
The optical wavefronts in transmission or reflection re- shaped and other nano aperture antennas have been
main spherical as long as the incident plane wave im- used to create a planar lens, which either functions
pinges normal to the flat lenses. It is therefore straight- as a focusing or diverging lens depending on the
forward to achieve high numerical-aperture (NA) fo- handedness of the incident circular polarization (see
cusing without spherical aberration. Flat lenses at figure 4(b)) [45, 61]. A flat lens design at telecom
telecom wavelengths have been experimentally demon- wavelengths with potentially high efficiency has been
strated using V-shaped antennas (see figure 6(a) and demonstrated in simulations (figure 6(e) and (f)) [60].
(b)) [55]. The efficiency of these flat lenses is, however, The design uses concentric loop antennas placed
rather small (i.e., 1% of the incident optical power on both sides of a substrate to enhance scattering
is focused) because of the use of only a single scat- efficiency and to increase the range of phase coverage.
terer layer, the small surface filling factor, and focusing Flat lenses working in the near-infrared with high
only the component of the scattered light that is cross- efficiency have been demonstrated experimentally by
polarized with respect to the incident polarization. At using reflect-arrays of patch antennas [62]. Note
THz and microwave frequencies, high-performance pla- that except for spherical aberration, monochromatic
nar components can benefit from few-layer metasur- aberrations are still present in the above demonstrated
faces, which have enabled highly efficient and ultra- flat lenses. For example, when incident light is
broadband polarization conversion and anomalous re- not perpendicular to the lenses, the transmitted or
fraction [56], and highly efficient reflect-array metasur- reflected wavefront is no longer spherical because
face lenses [57]. V-shaped apertures allow similar con- its phase distribution is that of (8) plus a linear
trol of scattering polarization, amplitude and phase as phase distribution introduced by the non-normal
incidence angle. Flat lenses also have chromatic

aberration, although one can design antennas with
multiple resonances to eliminate it by engineering their
dispersion [63] (see discussions in section 5).
It is of particular interest to focus Gaussian
beams to non-diffracting and long focal depth Bessel
beams that are traditionally generated using axicons
and have been widely used in microscopy imaging.
A metasurface approach to generate a Bessel beam
(axicons) [55, 64] has been demonstrated by creating
a linear phase gradient along the radial direction of
the metasurface. An arbitrary spatially varying phase
profile can be created in the azimuthal direction. A
V-shaped antenna based metasurface has been used to
create a vortex beam (i.e., Laguerre-Gaussian modes)
from a Gaussian beam [12, 65], resulting in optical
singularity at the beam center and a helicoidal equal-
phase wavefront carrying orbital angular momentum.
Using a phase profile based on the Pancharatnam-
Berry phase, a broadband phase plate generating
optical vortex beams has been demonstrated using an
array of rod antennas with different orientations (see
figure 4(c) and (d)) [46].
The most complex and general wavefront shaping
is to create a holographic image in the far-field. Meta-
surfaces provide the degrees of freedom to engineer the
local amplitude, phase, and polarization response on
an interface, and thus are a good platform to real-
ize all types of computer-generated holograms (CGHs)
(e.g., binary holograms, phase-only holograms, ampli-
Figure 6. (a) Left panel: SEM image of a fabricated
metasurface lens with 3 cm focal length, consisting of an array tude and phase modulation holograms). Figure 7(a)
of V-antennas. Right panel: phase profile of the lens discretized shows a metasurface consisting of arrays of nanoaper-
according to the phase responses of eight constituent antennas. ture antennas that produce a spatially varying trans-
Insets: zoom-in view of fabricated antennas. (b) 3D plots of the
simulated (top panel) and measured (middle panel) and 1D plots
mission coefficient [22]. By utilizing the dispersion of
(cross-sectional planes along the lines) of intensity distribution aperture antennas, the metasurface was designed to
of the lens in (a) on the focal plane. (c) SEM image of a planar operate as two distinctive binary transmission holo-
plasmonic metalens consisting of V-shaped apertures and with a grams at two different wavelengths, λ1 = 905 nm and
focal length f = 2.5 µm at an operational wavelength of 676 nm.
(d) Intensity distributions for two cross-sectional planes (top
λ2 = 1385 nm. It creates a word “META” shown in
panel) cutting through the center of the metalens in (c), and on figure 7 (b) at λ1 = 905 nm and a word “CGH” shown
the focal plane of the metalens (bottom panel). (e) Schematic in figure 7 (c) at λ2 = 1385 nm in the far-field. In
of a metasurface lens consisting of an array of 21 × 21 scatterers another metasurface hologram, V-shaped aperture an-
each made of two silver concentric loops (gray). The scatterers
are placed on both sides of the substrate (yellow). (f) Simulated tennas shown in figure 7(d) were used to introduce an
intensity distribution on the focal plane of the metasurface lens in eight-level phase distribution and a two-level ampli-
(e). (a) and (b) used with permission from [55], (c) and (d) used tude distribution [66]. The amplitude and phase dis-
with permission from [58], and (e) and (f) used with permission tributions approximated the required near-field ampli-
from [60].
tude and phase distributions on the metasurface plane,
so that a certain holographic image was obtained in
the far-field, as shown in figure 7(f). Additionally,
a reflect-array metasurface that introduced a 16-level
Pancharatnam-Berry phase has been demonstrated to
create complex holographic images in the far-field (fig-
ure 7(g), (h) and (i)) [67]. The antenna-orientation-
controlled Pancharatnam-Berry phase combined with
the reflect-array design led to broadband performance
and high efficiency of the hologram. Experimentally
Figure 7. Metasurface holograms. (a) SEM image of part of a metasurface hologram consisting of nanoaperture antennas. Different
colors represent pixels with distinctive transmission coefficients. (b) and (c) Transmitted light intensity of the metasurface in (a)
recorded in the far-field at λ1 = 905 nm and λ2 = 1385 nm, respectively. (d) SEM image of a fabricated metasurface for generating
a holographic image of the letter “P ”. Inset: zoomed-in view of the hologram. (e) Simulated and (f) measured holographic image
created by the metasurface holograms similar to (d) with an eight-level phase modulation and a two-level amplitude modulation.
(g) One-pixel cell structure of a nanorod-based hologram. The nanorod can rotate in the x-y plane with an orientation angle φ to
create different Pancharatnam?Berry phase delays. (h) 16-level phase distribution of the nanorod-based hologram (100 × 100 pixels
shown). (i) Experimentally obtained image in the far field created by the nanorod-based hologram at 632.8 nm wavelength. (a)-(c)
used with permission from [22], (d)-(f) used with permission from [66], and (g)-(i) used with permission from [67].
demonstrated efficiency reaches 80% at λ = 825 nm mental variation, scattering and diffraction. During
and the hologram operates between 630 nm and 1,050 recent years, conversion among polarization states us-
nm. ing metasurfaces has attracted increasing interest due
to their design flexibility and compactness. The ac-
4. Polarization conversion companied capability of tuning a phase delay spanning
the entire 2π range over a broad bandwidth and with
Polarization state is an intrinsic property of electro- a deep subwavelength resolution could potentially ad-
magnetic waves, and the conversion between polariza- dress some critical issues in the development of flat
tion states is very often highly desirable (or even neces- optics.
sary) for many modern electromagnetic and photonic Highly symmetric simple meta-atoms can be ad-
applications. For instance, in advanced communica- vantageous in maintaining polarization states. Break-
tion and sensing, converting linear polarization to cir- ing the symmetry can, however, provide additional de-
cular polarization makes a beam resistant to environ- grees of freedom to achieve customized functionality
that enables the manipulation of polarization states. 4.1. Linear-to-circular polarization conversion
Through tailoring the two eigenmodes corresponding
An antenna array backed with a ground plane has been
to orthogonal linear polarizations, it is possible to have
widely exploited at microwave frequencies to enhance
equal transmission magnitude but a relative phase de-
the radiation efficiency and beam directionality. This
lay ∆φ at a specific frequency. Narrowband polariza-
configuration also enhances the polarization conversion
tion conversions between linear and circular polariza-
in reflection for anisotropic subwavelength metallic res-
tion states (∆φ = π/2, quarter wave plates), or linear
onator arrays. Early work at microwave frequencies
polarization rotation (∆φ = π, half wave plates) have
demonstrated that narrowband conversion to various
been realized using single-layer metasurfaces [68–73]
polarization states, including linear-to-circular polar-
or multi-layer cascading metasurfaces [74–76] operat-
ization and linear polarization perpendicular to the
ing from microwave to optical frequencies. However,
incident one, is possible depending on the structural
the efficiency is limited, in general, up to 50% with a
parameters, incident angle, and frequency [78]. It has
bandwidth comparable to a meanderline quarter wave
also been shown that a pair of perpendicularly oriented
plate [68, 77]. The low level of polarization conversion
and detuned electric dipoles (e.g., rectangular, ellipti-
efficiency can be addressed by the implementation of
cal, squeezed cross resonators, etc.) can be used to
few-layer metasurfaces.
manipulate polarization states including the construc-
Following the Jones matrix description [43, 44]
tion of quarter-wave plates operating in reflection at
the transmission of linearly polarized incident fields
optical wavelengths [79, 80]. This type of structure is
(Ex , Ey ) through a metasurface can be described as
t i similar to those widely used in metamaterial perfect
Ex Txx Txy Ex absorbers [81], where the Fabry-Pérot-like interference
=
Eyt Tyx Tyy Eyi plays an important role [82].
i
Ex New device functionalities could be realized by
= T̂lin , (9) controlling spatial distribution of polarization response
Eyi
using metasurfaces. Figure 8 show a metasurface-
For circularly polarized incident fields, it becomes based quarter-wave plate [33] that generates high-
t i
E+ T++ T+− E+ quality circularly polarized light (degree of circular
t = i
E− T−+ T−− E− polarization or ellipticity > 0.97) over a broad
i
E+ wavelength range (λ = 5 to 12 µm) (figure 8(c)). The
= T̂circ i , (10) unit cell of the metasurface comprises two subunits
E−
(colored pink and green in figure 8(a) and (b)). Upon
where T±± = 21 (Txx + Tyy ) ± 2i (Txy − Tyx ) and T±∓ = excitation by linearly polarized incident light, the
1 i
2 (Txx − Tyy ) ∓ 2 (Txy + Tyx ). Under normal incidence subunits generate two co-propagating waves with equal
and in general, x and y directions do not necessarily amplitudes, orthogonal linear polarizations, and a π/2
coincide with the structure’s principal axes. There are phase difference (when offset d = Γ/4), which produce
a few properties of Jones matrices that are related to a circularly polarized anomalously refracted beam that
metasurface structural symmetries: bends away from the surface normal.
(i) All components in the Jones matrices could be By increasing the number of layers to two or
different if the metasurface lacks reflection or three, the near field or Fabry-Pérot-like coupling
rotational symmetries; can significantly enhance the efficiency of linear-
to-circular polarization conversion as well as the
(ii) If the metasurface structure has a mirror symme- operation bandwidth. This property is realized in
try, Txy = Tyx and T++ = T−− , and if the incident the few-layer metasurface structures illustrated in
linear polarization is further parallel or perpendic- figure 9 and figure 10. An ABA-type, anisotropic
ular to the symmetry plane, Txy = Tyx = 0; tri-layer metasurface, shown in figure 9(a), has
(iii) For metasurface structures with a C4 or C3 enabled narrowband, highly efficient linear-to-circular
rotational symmetry with respect to the z-axis, polarization conversion in transmission at microwave
we have Txx = Tyy , Tyx = −Txy , and T+− = T−+ . frequencies [83]. Here layer A is an electric metasurface
When designing metasurfaces for polarization conver- with periodically arranged resonant microstructures,
sion between the same kinds (x and y linear polariza- while layer B is a metallic mesh. There are two
tions or left- and right-handed circular polarizations), mechanisms that are responsible for transparency. The
we need to maximize the off-diagonal components of first one is the electromagnetic wave tunneling [84]
the Jones matrices. For the conversion between lin- (a mechanism that is essentially equivalent to Fabry-
ear and circular polarizations, the metasurfaces need Pérot-like resonance [85]), and the second one is
to enable π/2 phase difference between the orthogonal the extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) of layer
components. B that is mediated by the periodic structure of
(a) layer A [83]. Through structural tailoring, these

two transparency bands, corresponding to the two
orthogonal linear polarization directions (x and y), can
overlap and, at the same time, have a phase difference
of π/2, as shown in figure 9(b) at the frequency
indicated by the dashed vertical line. This means that
an incident electromagnetic wave linearly polarized at
45◦ has been transformed to a circularly polarized
one, with a conversion efficiency greatly exceeding any
single-layer metasurface.
(b) (a)
4 μm
(c)
(b)
Figure 9. (a) Unit cell of a tri-layer ABA-type narrowband

microwave linear-to-circular polarization converter, with the
transmission amplitude and phase shown in (b) at two
orthogonal directions. The operation frequency is indicated by
Figure 8. (a) Schematic of a metasurface quarter-wave the dashed vertical line. Used with permission from [83].
plate, with the unit cell of the metasurface consisting of two
subunits (pink and green). Each subunit contains eight V-
antennas. Upon excitation by linearly polarized incident light, Bi-layer metasurfaces have enabled high-efficiency
the subunits generate two copropagating waves with equal and broadband conversions from linear to circular
amplitudes, orthogonal linear polarizations, and a π/2 phase polarizations [86,87]. A bi-layer metasurface comprised
difference (when offset d = Γ/4), which produce a circularly of stacked and twisted metallic wire grids shown
polarized anomalous refraction that is separated from the
normal beam. (b) SEM image of a portion of the fabricated in figure 10(a) was developed to operate at THz
metasurface quarter-wave plate with a footprint of 230×230 µm2 frequencies [86]. For normal incidence and linearly
to accommodate the plane-wave like incident light. Antenna polarized light in the x direction, the first wire
orientation angles are indicated by β1 and β2 , and dashed lines
grid is aligned at 45◦ with respect to x direction.
represent the antenna symmetry axes. (c) Calculated degree of
circular polarization and intensity of the anomalously refracted The wire grid is designed such that the transmission
beam as a function of wavelength, showing the broadband and amplitude of orthogonal components |txx | and |txy |
high efficiency properties of the quarter-wave plate. Used with are approximately constant and equal, while the
permission from [33].
linear phase retardance is frequency dependent. This
frequency dependent phase retardance is compensated
through tailoring the geometric parameters of the
second wire grid, which also has simultaneously high
transmission coefficients |txx | and |tyy |. The metallic
grids were embedded within a polyimide film so
there are 4 interfaces: front air/polyimide, front
wire grid, back wire grid, and back polyimide/air.
Through combining the multiple reflections due
to these interfaces and the dispersion of specially
designed wire grids, the overall output of the two naturally occurring materials per unit thickness,
orthogonal x and y components have approximately typically it is insufficient to obtain the desirable 90◦
equal amplitude and a phase delay of about 90◦ , polarization rotation. Increasing the number of layers
resulting in circularly polarized transmission over can yield half wave rotation; however, in general,
a relatively broad bandwidth from 0.98 to 1.36 this approach cannot sustain the polarization rotation
THz where the ellipticity is about 0.99, as shown power through increasing the number of layers by
in figure 10(b). Circular-to-circular polarization simple stacking, due to the near-field coupling or
conversion was demonstrated employing a tri-layer interference of the multireflections. In the past,
metasurface designed through the approach developed efficient linear polarization conversion still employed
by Pfeiffer and Grbic [88], with the unit cell illustrated anisotropic properties of metamaterials.
in figure 10(c). The measured and simulated Jones
matrix of the metasurface [89], shown in figure 10(d), (a) (c) 0.0
Reflected field: imaginary part

wr Ax
reveals a high transmittance of 50% for right-handed 1
-0.2
Lr Ay
to left-handed circular polarization conversion, while p py -0.4
all other components in the Jones matrix are below px
-0.6
2.5%, suggesting an extinction ration of ∼ 20 : 1 at the 2
3
y
designed wavelength of 1.5 µm. It was also observed H0 k -0.8
z
that the circular-to-circular polarization conversion α θi -1.0
ts
extends over a quite broad wavelength range. x,E0 -0.2 0.0 0.2
Reflected field: real part
(d)
(b) 1.0 0.3
(a) (b)
Reflected field: imaginary part

cross-polarization
2 3
Reflectance 0.8 0.2
0.6 0.1
0.4 0.0
0.2 co-polarization -0.1

1
0.0 -0.2
0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0 -0.4 -0.2 0.0
Frequency (THz) Reflected field: real part
Figure 11. Metasurface broadband polarization conversion in

reflection. (a) Schematic metasurface structure. The incidence
angle θi = 25◦ , and the incident electric field E0 is linearly
polarized in the x direction with an angle α = 45◦ with
respect to the cut-wire orientation. (b) Experimentally measured
co- and cross-polarized reflectance. (c) Cross- and (d) co-
(c) (d) 0.6 polarized multiple reflections theoretically calculated at 0.76
0.5 THz, revealing the constructive and destructive interferences,
Transmittance
0.4 TLL respectively. Used with permission from [56].

TLR
0.3
TRL
0.2
TRR
A simple structure is shown in figure 11(a)
0.1 where an array of cut-wires was separated from the
0
1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2
ground plane by a polyimide spacer [56]. Under
λ ( µm) normal incidence, the incident x polarized THz
waves were converted to y polarized waves in
Figure 10. (a) Optical images with different levels of zooming
for a fabricated bi-layer THz metasurface embedded within
reflection with a conversion efficiency higher than
a polyimide film. (b) Experimentally measured transmission 80% over an ultrabroad bandwidth, as shown in
amplitude, phase retardation, and ellipticity under horizontally figure 11(b). The co-polarized reflection approaches
polarized incidence, for the sample shown in (a). (c) Unit cell zero at several individual frequencies where the
of a tri-layer metasurface for circular-to-circular polarization
conversion operating at the near infrared, with simulated and destructive interference conditions [56, 82] are largely
measured transmittance shown in (d). (a) and (b) used with satisfied, as illustrated in figure 11(c) and (d), in
permission from [86], (c) and (d) used with permission from [89]. which the superposition seems to be responsible for
the observed broadband performance. Following this
concept, a variety of metasurface structures, mostly
4.2. Linear polarization rotation at microwave frequencies, have been demonstrated
to accomplish multi-band and ultra broadband linear
Planar chiral response can yield optical activity,
polarization conversion in reflection [90]; even at
rotating the direction of linear polarization. While the
visible wavelengths the high efficiency can be still
polarization rotation power may significantly exceed
largely maintained according to the simulation results thogonal directions, and an array of cut-wires tilted
in [91]. The observed linear polarization rotation at an azimuthal angle of 45◦ , as shown in figure 12(c).
is consistent with an earlier contribution using a The front grating is transparent when the incident THz
similar structure to control optical polarization in a field is linearly polarized along the x direction. As it
reflection geometry [92], while the bandwidth was continues to propagate and excite the cut-wires, the
much improved and different theoretical models were scattering results in both x and y polarized compo-
used. In order to avoid the increasing metallic loss nents. For forward scattering, the back grating allows
in the optical frequency range, dielectric metasurfaces the newly generated y polarized component to pass
for linear polarization conversion in reflection were also through while blocking the x polarized component; for
demonstrated, based on the same principle [93] (see back scattering, the front grating reflects the y polar-
discussions in section 5). ized component and allows the x polarized component
It is more desirable to have linear polarization to pass. This process continues due to a multireflection
converters operating in the transmission mode. There process within this multi-layer structure. When the
have been a few bi-layer or tri-layer metasurfaces thicknesses of the polyimide spacer layers are carefully
demonstrated to realize cross polarization conversion tuned, a constructive interference enhances the polar-
operating at a narrow single band or multiple ization conversion and a destructive interference of the
bands [96–98], where the polarization rotation is co-polarized reflections largely reduces the reflection
insensitive to the azimuthal angle of the incident loss (insertion loss) at multiple frequencies, as shown
polarization due to the use of structures with four- in figure 12(d), a mechanism similar to metamaterial
fold rotational symmetry. Figure 12(a) shows the antireflection coatings [85] and perfect absorbers [82].
anisotropic unit cell of a bi-layer metasurface for 90◦ The back grating also guarantees a purely y polarized
rotation of the THz linear polarization, consisting of a output – there is practically no co-polarized transmis-
front array of asymmetric split-ring resonators (ASRR) sion. The overall result is that the x polarized inci-
for polarization conversion and a rear array of S- dent THz waves can be completely converted to its
shaped resonators (SR) for polarization selection [94]. orthogonal y polarization, over a bandwidth exceed-
For the ASRR metasurface, the incident x -polarized ing 2 octaves and with a conversion efficiency up to
THz waves induces currents and forms a net electric 80%. Simply by scaling, a variety of similar struc-
dipole in the y-direction, providing both x - and y- tures [99, 100] were employed in the microwave and
polarized components in reflection and transmission. infrared frequency ranges to demonstrate broadband,
The SR metasurface, however, exhibits negligible high-efficiency linear polarization rotators. Further-
polarization conversion; it was tailored to have more, in the structure shown in figure 12(c), the trans-
a resonance frequency coinciding with the ASRRs mission phase can be finely tuned to span an entire 2π
for x -polarized waves, allowing only y-polarized range and with subwavelength resolution through re-
waves to pass through and blocking the x -polarized placing the cut-wires with a variety of anisotropic res-
waves. Due to the dispersion of the metasurfaces onators with varying geometric dimensions [56]. Com-
and through carefully optimizing the PET spacer bining this property and the high polarization conver-
thickness, a Fabry-Pérot resonance occurs within the sion efficiency promises great potential in wavefront
ultrathin polarization rotator, which can enhance the control, resulting in a new class of practical flat op-
polarization conversion efficiency exceeding that of tical devices.
the ASRR metasurface alone. Although numerical A similar broadband THz polarization rotator was
simulations predict a conversion efficiency of 50% demonstrated by Cong et al. [95], where the middle
(cross-polarized transmission magnitude 0.71) and a cut-wire array was replaced by a wire grating, as
polarization-conversion ratio (PCR) up to 99.9% using schematically shown in figure 12(e). The formation of
lossless PET spacer, the experimental values realized a Fabry-Pérot cavity makes this metasurface structure
are 23% (magnitude 0.48) and 97.7%, respectively, perform in remarkable contrast to cascading wire
at 1.04 THz as shown in figure 12(b), due to the polarizers with consecutive 45◦ rotation. The latter
significant loss within the PET spacer [94]. does rotate the incident linear polarization by 90◦
Increasing the conversion efficiency and/or band- but allows only up to 25% power transmission. This
width becomes particularly interesting when metasur- metasurface showed a conversion efficiency up to 85%,
faces are used to realize a new class of flat optical com- and the output waves exhibit extremely clean cross
ponents where the transmission phase can be simul- linear polarization over a broad bandwidth, as shown
taneously controlled. An intriguing example for lin- in figure 12(f), although the transmission phase cannot
ear polarization rotation is a tri-layer THz metasurface be controlled.
demonstrated by Chen and co-workers [56]. It consists
of a pair of identical gratings that are aligned in or-
(a) (c) (e)
x (E)
y (H)
z (k)
(b)
(d) 1.0
(f)
Reflectance / transmittance
cross-polarized transmission
0.8
0.6
0.4 Experimental
Numerical
Theoretical
0.2
co-polarized reflection
0.0
0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0 2.4
Frequency (THz)
Figure 12. (a) Unit cell (left panel) and optical images (right panel) of a bi-layer polarization rotator, and (b) measured co- and cross-
polarized transmission coinciding with the simulated results, together with the polarization conversion ratio. (c) Schematic of the
unit cell of a tri-layer metasurface linear polarization converter and (d) cross-polarized transmittance obtained through experimental
measurements, numerical simulations, and theoretical calculations, together with the numerically simulated co-polarized reflectance.
(e) Schematic of a tri-layer metasurface polarization rotator consisting of three metallic gratings, and (f) experimental transmittance
spectra. (a) and (b) used with permission from [94], (c) and (d) used with permission from [56], (e) and (f) used with permission
from [95].
4.3. Asymmetric transmission and synthesize bianisotropic metasurfaces realized

by cascading anisotropic, patterned metallic sheets.
By reducing the structural symmetry and converting
This design approach starts with the desirable S-
between polarization states, metasurfaces have yielded
parameters and solves for the necessary admittances
a polarization sensitive and asymmetric transmission
of the metallic sheets. Once the required sheet
with respect to the direction of wave propagation [101].
admittances are known, the theory of frequency-
Asymmetric polarization conversion and transmission
selective surface and full-wave numerical simulations
were observed in planar chiral metasurfaces for
f are used for their physical realization. One
circularly polarized incident fields with T±∓ 6=
f f b such metasurface exhibiting strongly asymmetric
T∓± and T±∓ 6= T±∓ , where the superscripts
transmission of circularly polarized millimeter waves
“f” and “b” denote the forward and backward
f is shown in figure 13(a) and (b) [88]. As shown in
propagation directions, respectively, though T±± =
b f b
figure 13(c), the S21 parameter (i.e., transmission)
T±± and T±∓ = T∓± as required by Lorentz is below −10 dB for ++, +−, and −−, and it is
Reciprocity Lemma. The planar chiral metasurfaces above −0.8 dB for −+, resulting in an asymmetric
are more transparent to a circularly polarized wave response of 0.99 over a bandwidth of 20% at the
from one side than from the other side, with an designed millimeter wavelengths. Similar behaviors
experimentally measured transmission difference up to were observed in tri-layer metasurfaces operating at
40% at microwave [101] and 15% at visible [102, 103] near infrared wavelengths [89], as shown in figure 10(c)
frequencies. This effect is caused by the different and (d).
efficiencies of polarization conversion in the opposite A variety of bi-layer metasurfaces have been also
propagation directions for lossy metasurfaces, in reported to exhibit asymmetric transmission for lin-
remarkable contrast to the optical activity and Faraday early polarized incident light [105, 106]. Further devel-
effect. It implies that when circularly polarized light opments showed that bi-layer metasurface structures
passes through the metasurface and then retraces can be used to demonstrate increased bandwidth of the
its path after reflection from a mirror, the final asymmetric transmission in the near infrared [107,108].
polarization state will be different from that of the It was shown that the interlayer alignment could have
initial state [104]. very little effect on the asymmetric transmission [107],
Bi-layer and multi-layer metasurfaces can increase which indicates that the near-field coupling is negligi-
the polarization conversion and consequently enhance ble. This advantageous property is particularly use-
the transmission asymmetry. Pfeiffer and Grbic ful in the optical regime where the interlayer align-
recently presented systematic methods to analyze
(a) (b) (d)
(e)
(c)
Figure 13. (a) Schematic of a tri-layer metasurface unit cell and (b) optical image of its top metallic sheet, which exhibits
asymmetric transmission of circularly polarized millimeter waves with transmission coefficients shown in (c). Solid curves: measured
data; dashed curves: simulated data. (d) The unit cell of a tri-layer metasurface which enables (e) broadband and highly asymmetric
transmission of linearly polarized millimeter waves. Used with permission from [88].
ment is challenging. In order to take full advantage addressing the efficiency issue in metallic metasurfaces.
of the asymmetric transmission, it is necessary to sup- Furthermore, the capability of tuning the magnetic
press other components and only obtain a high contrast and electric resonances through tailoring the geometry
asymmetric component (e.g., tyx ) within the Jones and spacing of dielectric resonators enables device
transmission matrix [109–111]. Tri-layer metasurfaces functionalities beyond metallic metasurfaces.
have demonstrated the best performance in both the
efficiency and bandwidth. Excellent examples include 5.1. Dielectric resonators
the ultra-broadband THz linear polarization rotator
shown in figure 12(c)-(f), which exhibits a bandwidth Dielectric resonators can be traced back to the
over two octaves [56,95]. Another tri-layer metasurface discussions by Richtmyer [112]. Due to the excitation
is shown in figure 13(d) and (e), which demonstrates of the resonant modes as well as their leaky nature,
highly efficient, broadband asymmetric transmission of dielectric resonators can serve as radiative antennas,
linearly polarized millimeter waves [88]. The simulated as developed theoretically and experimentally in the
results show that a 1-dB transmission bandwidth of 1980’s by Long et al. at microwave frequencies [113].
2.43:1 for the desired polarization is achieved, and that Increasing the dielectric constant can significantly
the rejection of the unwanted polarization exceeds 30 reduce the required size d of the resonators, which
dB in this band. is related to the √ free space resonant wavelength
λ0 by d ∼ λ0 / . However, increasing the
dielectric constant also reduces the radiation efficiency
5. Dielectric metasurfaces
and narrows the operational bandwidth, which is
The majority of metasurface research has focused on inversely related to the dielectric constant. Typical
using subwavelength metallic structures, where ohmic values of the dielectric constant used range from
losses pose a severe issue, particularly in the optical 8 to 100 in order to balance the compactness,
frequency range, limiting the performance of arguably radiation efficiency and bandwidth requirements. Very
any desirable functions. Low-loss, high-refractive- often dielectric resonators are mounted on top of a
index dielectric materials have received much attention metal ground plane, which improves the radiation
during recent years partially due to their ability in efficiency and acts as an electrical symmetry plane
to improve the compactness. Early work in resonant was used to demonstrate dielectric metamaterials
dielectric antennas at microwave frequencies has been because of its high dielectric constant (∼ 600) at
summarized in review articles [114, 115]. microwave frequencies. Left-handed behavior was
In the optical regime, low loss dielectric particles observed in prisms formed by an array of periodic or
support strong electric and magnetic scattering known random subwavelength BST rods [125], and negative
as Mie resonances, which can be decomposed into magnetic response was also observed in a bulk
a multipole series. The modes are determined by metamaterial consisting of an array of subwavelength
the particle size and structural properties [116–119], BST cubes [121]. In the optical frequency range,
in contrast to metallic particles where the resonance materials used to form dielectric metamaterials include
scattering is dominated by the electric resonances. tellurium (Te) cubes on barium fluoride (BaF2 ) [126],
In most dielectric resonators of regular shapes such cubic (β) phase silicon carbide (SiC) whiskers on
as spheres, cubes, cylindrical disks and rods, the zinc selenide (ZnSe) [127, 128], in the mid-infrared;
lowest resonant mode is the magnetic dipole resonance silicon cylindrical nano disks embedded within silicon
and the second lowest mode is the electric dipole dioxide [129] in the near infrared; silicon nano spheres
resonance [119, 120]. Figure 14 shows the fundamental on glass [130] and titanium dioxide cylindrical disks on
magnetic and electrical dipole modes for a cubic silver [21] at visible frequencies.
dielectric resonator [121]. The magnetic resonance The loss reduction enabled by dielectric metasur-
mode originates from the excitation of circulating faces becomes clear when functioning as a linear polar-
displacement currents, resulting in the strongest ization rotator as shown in Figure 15, where an array of
magnetic polarization at the center, similar to the case anisotropic (rectangular) silicon resonators is separated
of magnetic resonant response in metallic SRRs. The from a metal ground plane by a thin layer of PMMA. In
contribution from other higher order modes can be experiments, linear polarization conversion with more
ignored as the coefficients of these modes are often than 98% conversion efficiency was demonstrated over
orders of magnitude lower [122]. a 200 nm bandwidth in the near infrared [93], as shown
in figure 15(c). This result exemplifies the significant
loss reduction enabled by the use of dielectric meta-
surfaces instead of metallic resonators shown in fig-
E H ure 11, particularly in the infrared and visible fre-
k k
quency ranges.
H E
In general, dielectric resonators offer only up
to π phase variation in transmission when the
electric and magnetic resonances are at different
frequencies. By overlapping the electric and magnetic
E H dipole resonances through varying the geometry
k H k
of dielectric resonators, however, it is possible to
E
achieve a phase variation covering the entire 2π
range [131]. This was experimentally verified even
without satisfying the condition of equal electric
and magnetic resonance width [132]. In cylindrical
Figure 14. Electric and magnetic modes in a cubic dielectric
resonator. (a) and (b) Magnetic dipole resonance mode, showing dielectric disks, the tuning parameter could be the disk
electric field (a) and magnetic field (b) distributions. (c) and (d) height, diameter, and period (spacing). The spacing
Electric dipole resonance mode, showing electric field (c) and between resonators further facilitates the tuning of
magnetic field (d) distributions. The incident fields are indicated
resonance coupling [118], which affects the dispersion
in the insets. Reproduced with permission from [121].
of the scattering phase resulting from the different
Subwavelength dielectric resonators can be used transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes, and
as the basic building blocks of metamaterials and also enables electromagnetically induced transparency
metasurfaces, as first suggested by O’Brien and in dielectric metasurfaces with an ultra high quality
Pendry to obtain magnetic activity in dielectric factor [133].
composites [123]. A class of Mie resonance-
based dielectric metamaterials have been consequently 5.2. Directional scattering
demonstrated, with some early work reviewed in [124], In 1983 Kerker et al. discussed electromagnetic
where high dielectric constant materials are used to scattering by magnetic spheres. It was shown
create subwavelength resonators for the realization of that back scattering can be reduced to zero by
negative electric and magnetic responses. Ferroelectric spheres with equal permeability µ and permittivity
barium strontium titanate (BST or Ba0.5 Sr0.5 TiO3 ) [134]. In such a situation the particle exhibits
(a) (b) 142], without reflection phase reversal in the latter.

Using geometric shapes other than spherical or cubic
dielectric resonators, one could have more degrees
of freedom to tune independently the frequencies of
electric and magnetic resonances to realize resonant
directional scattering. This is exemplified by the
closer electric and magnetic dipole resonances when
squeezing the silicon spheres in the z-direction, which
(c) results in a larger forward-to-backward scattering
ratio [136]. An array of silicon cylindrical nano
disks, as shown in figure 16(a) and (b), was used
to demonstrate resonant directional scattering in the
visible wavelength range [129]. By varying the
diameter of the silicon disks, it was observed that
the electric and magnetic resonances overlap, resulting
in enhanced forward scattering and cancellation of
backward scattering, as shown in figure 16(c) and (d).
(a) (b)
Figure 15. Dielectric metasurface for broadband polarization

conversion in reflection. (a) Schematic and (b) SEM image of the
dielectric metasurface structure. (c) Experimentally measured
(solid lines) and numerically simulated (dotted lines) co- and
cross-polarized reflectance. Used with permission from [93].
(c) (d)
equal electric and magnetic multipole coefficients,
resulting in destructive interference in the backward
propagating direction and constructive interference in
the forward propagating direction. The magnetic
Mie resonance overcomes the absence of magnetic
materials at optical frequencies and enables the
investigation of directional optical scattering using
dielectric metasurfaces. The complete cancellation of
back scattering was also theoretically predicted in [118]
at an off-resonance frequency in an array of silicon nano
Figure 16. (a) Schematic of silicon nanodisks embedded into
spheres where the electric and magnetic polarizabilities a low-index (SiO2 ) medium. (b) SEM image of the fabricated
have equal values. Such a phenomenon corresponds to silicon nanodisks before embedding them into SiO2 . The
a ‘Huygens’ secondary source, and was experimentally insets show the close-up top and oblique views. (c) Optical
demonstrated using nonmagnetic dielectric spherical transmittance and (d) reflectance spectra of the fabricated
sample, where the white dashed ellipses indicate the regions
and cylindrical scatters with moderate dielectric where the back scattering is significantly reduced. Used with
constants at microwave [135] and visible [136, 137] permission from [129].
frequencies.
The resonant directional scattering is more An ideal dielectric Huygens’ metasurface requires
interesting because of the large field enhancement overlapping electric and magnetic dipole resonances
and concentration. Resonant response usually of equal resonance strength and width in order to
accompanies large back scattering, which makes it completely cancel the reflection and obtain near unity
more feasible for dielectric metasurfaces to operate transmission [132]. High transmittance of 55% at
in a reflection configuration [21, 93]. This enabled resonance was experimentally demonstrated in the
the demonstration of broadband dielectric metasurface near-infrared using a silicon metasurface consisting of
mirrors [138–140] and optical magnetic mirrors [141, an array of cylindrical resonators embedded within an
SiO2 environment, where the condition of equal width (a) (c)

of the electric and magnetic resonances was not yet
satisfied [132]. By tuning the dielectric constant of
the environment and the geometric dimensions of the
resonators, it is possible to achieve spectral overlap
and equal width of the resonances. Post-fabrication
active tuning of the resonances is attractive for this
purpose as well. For instance, a layer of liquid crystals (b)
was added on top of the silicon nano disks, providing
temperature-dependent refractive indices when the
liquid crystals were switched between the nematic
and isotropic phases [143]. It was shown that the
(e)
electric resonance has a larger tuning range because of
TiO2
extended fringing fields outside the resonators, while
the magnetic resonance has smaller tuning capability z
Silver
z
because of the better confined field distribution 0 y E field 0 y H field =
within the dielectric resonators. Reconfigurable z
(d) (f)
directional scattering can be also accomplished using
y
metasurfaces consisting of semiconducting resonator
arrays through injection of free charge carriers by
optical excitation [144].
TiO2
Silver z θ
5.3. Beam forming and wavefront control enabled by
Silicon y
dielectric metasurfaces x
Similar to metasurfaces consisting of plasmonic metal- Figure 17. (a) A phase profile in the azimuthal direction
lic resonators, wavefront control and beam forming with an increment of π/4, created using (b) silicon rectangular
can be accomplished using dielectric metasurfaces. By resonators on top of a metal mirror with a PMMA spacer,
and enabling the formation of a near infrared optical vortex
varying the dimensions of the rectangular silicon res-
beam. The pattern in (c) is the interference between the vortex
onators shown in figure 15, a phase variation can span beam and a reference Gaussian beam. (d) Schematic of part
the entire 2π range. This enables the generation of of a reflect-array metasurface consisting of dielectric resonators
a near infrared optical vortex beam in reflection with patterned on a metallic substrate and operating at λ = 633 nm.
(e) Simulated electric and magnetic field distributions in a
high efficiency when a phase gradient profile was cre- dielectric resonator antenna. (f) Simulation showing that at
ated in the azimuthal direction using 8 elements of dif- zero-degree angle of incidence the metasurface in (d) generates a
ferent sizes [93], as shown in figure 17(a-c). The use of reflected wave propagating along 20◦ direction from the surface
a PMMA spacer layer between the silicon resonators normal. (a)-(c) used with permission from [93], (d)-(f) used with
and a metallic back plane not only provides the de-
sirable interference resulting from the Fabry-Pérot-like
multiple reflections, but also effectively prevents the in- quadrants with a phase increment of π/2 and each
cident light from coupling to surface waves. This is in quadrant consists of an array of cylindrical silicon nano
remarkable contrast to the situation where the dielec- disks of the same geometry but different separations
tric resonators are directly mounted onto the metallic between adjacent disks [147]. By varying the diame-
surface [21]. In the latter work, a linear phase gradi- ter of silicon nanoposts to control the phase profile, a
ent at wavelength of 633 nm was created by using six high-efficiency lens was demonstrated with measured
TiO2 cylindrical resonators of various diameters sitting focusing efficiency in transmission up to 82% [148].
on top of a silver plane (figure 17(d)), demonstrating a Through varying the geometric dimensions and cou-
deflection from the specular reflection by the expected pling strength between dielectric resonators, it is pos-
20◦ (figure 17(f)) [21]. It was shown that considerable sible to create the required phase profiles to simulta-
dissipation occurs within the TiO2 resonators, partially neously control the wavefront at multiple wavelengths.
because this configuration can also function as a meta- This approach was exploited in the demonstration of
material absorber [145]. Even more optical power is a multi-wavelength dielectric metasurface lens operat-
coupled to surface waves, which was described in a ing near telecommunication wavelengths [63, 149]. To
recent theoretical proposal of directional launching of achieve equal focal lengths at different wavelengths,
surface waves [146]. the metasurface lens imparts a wavelength dependent
A metasurface that converts a Gaussian beam into phase contribution to compensate for the dispersive ac-
a vortex beam was demonstrated; it consists of four
directions. Transmission spatial phase profiles have

been also experimentally demonstrated, functioning as
lenses for focusing and axicons for creating a Bessel
beam (see figure 19) [150].
(b) (a)
400 nm
(a)
(c) (d)
(b)
Figure 18. Multi-wavelength dielectric metasurface cylindrical
lens. (a) False colored side-view SEM image of the metasurface
lens. Each unit cell is identified by a different color. (b)-(d)
10
x (μm)
Measured intensity distributions in the plane perpendicular to
0
the silicon ridges at wavelengths (b) 1300 nm, (c) 1550 nm, and
(d) 1800 nm. Used with permission from [63] -10
-50 0 50 100
z (μm)
cumulated propagation phase. This is achieved by de-

Figure 19. (a) SEM image of a fabricated dielectric metasurface
signing the dispersive phase response of coupled dielec- axicon consisting of silicon nanobeams. (b) Measured intensity
tric ridge patterned on a fused silica (SiO2 ) substrate, profile of the nondiffractive Bessel beam generated behind the
as shown in figure 18(a). It creates a phase profile axicon in (a) in the xz plane. Used with permission from [150].
that realizes the same focal length for wavelengths at
1300, 1550, and 1800 nm as shown in figure 18(b-d). It is essential to realize simultaneous and complete
The focusing efficiency, defined as the ratio of power control of polarization and phase with subwavelength
at the beam focal waist and the input power, is still resolution and high transmission. In the optical
rather low, in part due to the reflection loss. Few-layer regime plasmonic metasurfaces partially accomplish
metasurfaces introduced in previous sections could po- this goal with limited efficiency [47]. In a recent paper
tentially address this issue of impedance mismatch and from Faraon’s group, a dielectric metasuface platform
improve the focusing efficiency. For wavelengths other was demonstrated based on elliptical high-contrast
than these specific values, the operation of the lens fol- dielectric nanoposts that provide complete control of
lows the normal dispersion curves, which indicates that transmissive polarization and phase with measured
a dielectric metasurface lens that eliminates chromatic efficiency ranging from 72% to 97%, achieved through
aberration over a broad range of wavelengths is still varying the ellipticity, size, as well as orientation of
challenging to accomplish. the nanoposts [151]. It was shown that most free space
An alternative approach to create a spatially- high-performance transmissive optical elements can be
varying phase profile is through the use of Pancharatnam- realized, such as lenses, wave plates, beamsplitters,
Berry phase [50]. The key is the conversion between holograms and arbitrary vector beam generators. Two
left- and right-handed circular polarization states via examples are illustrated in figure 20 for incident
different routes on the Poincaré sphere. The required polarization-dependent focusing.
polarization control can be achieved by the excitation
of electric and magnetic resonances in dielectric res- 6. Metasurfaces for wave guidance and
onators. Using silicon nanobeams with appropriate radiation
geometric dimensions, it was shown that the incident
circularly polarized light is partially converted into cir- In the previous sections we mainly focus on the physics
cularly polarized light with opposite handedness with and applications of metasurfaces in controlling waves
an imparted Pancharatnam-Berry phase depending on that propagate in free space. The present section
the orientation of the silicon nanobeams [150]. The reviews the emerging research on using metasurfaces
nanobeam metasurface exhibits anomalous refraction to control guided waves and to couple between guided
when forming a constant phase gradient. Linearly po- waves and waves propagating in free space. Because
larized incident light is split into right- and left-handed of the spatial inhomogeneity of metasurfaces, they do
circularly polarized beams that propagate in different not support any eigen guided modes. That is, waves
(a) Simulation Measurement

100 μm
1
Intensity (a.u.)
500 nm
x
1 mm 0
y z
y
100 μm
x
(b) Measurement Measurement
Simulation (without polarizer) (with polarizer)
2 μm 2 μm
1
Intensity (a.u.)
2 μm
200 μm
0
100 μm
Figure 20. (a) Dielectric metasurface that separates the x - and y-polarized incident light, deflecting and focusing them to two
different spots. (b) Dielectric metasurface that focuses the incident circularly polarized light to a diffraction-limited spot or a
doughnut-shaped spot depending on its handedness. Left column: schematic illustration of the devices; Mid-column: simulated and
experimental results; Right column: SEM images of the dielectric metasurfaces. Used with permission from [151].
propagating along metasurfaces are at a transient the contrary, conventional grating couplers provide
state and are constantly evolving. Thus, metasurfaces positive and negative reciprocal lattice vectors, ±2π/Λ,
are most suitable for realizing mode conversions. where Λ is the grating period. The coupling between
By designing the in-plane effective wavevector using two modes is symmetric, and thus the phase matching
metasurface structures, one is able to realize conversion condition, β1 −β2 = 2π/Λ, has to be strictly satisfied to
between two different guided modes or between a ensure that electromagnetic energy is transferred from
guided mode and a mode propagating in the free space. one mode to the other.
There are a couple of major differences between (2) The spacing between adjacent constituent
mode conversion using metasurfaces and using conven- elements in a metasurface is subwavelength. Therefore,
tional grating-based mode convertors: metasurfaces are able to modify the wavevector
(1) Metasurfaces can be designed to provide of a guided wave adiabatically. The absence of
a unidirectional phase gradient, or a unidirectional abrupt variation of wavevectors prevents scattering
effective wavevector. The latter leads to an asymmetric of electromagnetic energy into free space or into
coupling between modes: electromagnetic energy is the substrate. Grating couplers, however, have a
transferred preferentially from one mode to the other, periodicity comparable to the wavelength. Guided
while the inverse process can be highly inefficient. Such waves are likely to be scattered, which makes in-plane
asymmetric electromagnetic energy transfer between confinement of electromagnetic energy a challenge.
modes is maintained even when the conventional phase
matching condition is not strictly satisfied (i.e., phase 6.1. Coupling between free space and surface waves
gradient dΦ/dr not equal to the difference in wave
number between two modes, β1 − β2 ). This property The pioneering work on using metasurfaces to control
ensures that mode conversion can be realized over a guided waves was conducted by Sievenpiper and
broad spectral range and won’t be greatly affected colleagues in the microwave spectral range [152].
by small structural changes to the metasurfaces. On They used the concept of holography to design
impedance surfaces that convert a given surface
(a) (c) (e)
(b)
(d) (f)
Figure 21. (a) Schematic showing the concept of holographic leaky wave antenna. Surface waves (undulating arrows) are excited on
a metasurface impedance surface, and are scattered by variations in the surface impedance to produce the desired radiation (straight
arrows). (b) Unit cell of the impedance surface consisting of a patch antenna patterned on a metal grounded layer of insulator.
(c) A section of the designed scalar impedance surface that scatters a cylindrical surface wave produced by a point source into a
plane wave propagating along 60◦ from the surface normal. (d) A section of the designed tensor impedance surface that scatters a
cylindrical surface wave produced by a point source into a plane wave propagating along 45◦ from the surface normal. (e) Black and
gray curves are, respectively, radiation patterns of a monopolar antenna placed on the scalar holographic impedance surface and on a
smooth metal surface. (f) Black and gray curves show, respectively, measured radiation patterns with left-handed and right-handed
circular polarization produced by a monopolar antenna placed on the tensor holographic impedance surface. Used with permission
from [152].
wave into a freely propagating wave with desired agation direction) that propagate in the x -direction,
far-field radiation pattern and polarization. The the surface impedance is Z(x, y) = Ex (x, y)/Hy (x, y).
impedance surface is essentially a hologram, which The surface magnetic field is proportional to the sur-
is the interference pattern between a reference beam face current, which is provided by the electromagnetic
and an object beam, and carries information of the source. For example, a monopole antenna produces
phase, amplitude and polarization of the desired a cylindrical distribution of surface current. The func-
object beam. The object beam is reconstructed tion of the impedance surface is to translate this surface
when the reference beam impinges on the hologram. current to a distribution of electromagnetic waves on
In Sievenpiper’s implementation, a source antenna the surface, which matches the desired radiative wave.
produces the reference beam in the form of a surface In Sievenpiper and colleagues’ work, square
wave, Esurf , and the object beam is the desired patch antennas (figure 21(b)) were used to construct
wave, Erad , propagating in the half space above scalar impedance surfaces and square patches with
the surface (figure 21(a)); microwave holograms are an additional slice were used for tensor impedance
created according to the interference pattern produced surfaces. The three independent terms in the
by the two waves and consist of a square lattice impedance tensor, Zxx , Zxy = Zyx and Zyy , are
of dissimilar sub-wavelength conductive patches on controlled by the three degrees of freedom in antenna
a metal-grounded dielectric substrate. Both scalar design: the slice width, its orientation angle, and
and tensor forms of the impedance surfaces were the gap between neighboring square patches. In the
experimentally demonstrated. case of scalar impedance surfaces, the value of surface
Surface impedance provides an appropriate lan- impedance of patch antennas was determined by the
guage to characterize the properties of the metasurface. following procedure:
It is defined as the ratio between the electric and mag- (i) Calculating dispersion relation of surface waves
netic fields near the surface. For transverse magnetic propagating on a 2D periodic array of patch
(TM) waves (i.e., magnetic field transverse to the prop-
antennas. Specifically, Bloch boundary conditions
are applied to a unit cell of the impedance (a)

surface, and eigen surface wave modes and their
eigen wavevectors are determined for a range of
frequencies.
(ii) Calculating the surface impedance
R for a given op-
eration frequency ω0 , Z(ω0 ) = unit cell (Ex /Hy )dxdy.
A library that relates the surface impedances and patch
antenna geometries can be created by repeating the
above procedure for patch antennas of different sizes.
The distribution of surface impedance Z(x, y) is
determined by the following holographic technique. In
the case of a scalar impedance surface, with a surface (b)
current Jsurf (x, y) produced by the electromagnetic
source and the object far-field radiation Erad (x, y, z),
the required surface impedance is

Jsurf,x
Z(x, y) = j X + M Re (Erad,x , Erad,y ) .
Jsurf,y
(11)
In the case of a tensor impedance surface, we have

X 0
Z(x, y) = j
0 X

M Erad,x
+ j Im (Jsurf,x , Jsurf,y )
2 Erad,y

Jsurf,x
− (Erad,x , Erad,y ) . (12)
Jsurf,y Figure 22. (a) Section of an impedance surface near the central
In the above two equations, X represents the aver- monopolar antenna. (b) Right-handed circularly polarized
radiation profiles produced by the impedance surface antenna
age impedance value, and M spans the entire available near 17 GHz. Inset is the entire antenna with a radius of 9.7 cm.
impedance range. Using the holographic technique and Used with permission from [153].
the library of patch antennas, Sievenpiper and cowork-
ers demonstrated a scalar impedance surface that scat-
ters the current generated by a monopolar antenna into experimentally [155] that width-modulated microstrip
a linearly polarized plane wave propagating along 60◦ lines patterned on a grounded dielectric slab introduce
from the surface normal (figure 21(c) and (e)). The sur- a sinusoidally modulated surface impedance and
face current has a cylindrical distribution and can be provide appropriate conditions for leaky wave radiation
described by Jsurf = r12 exp(−jk0 ns r)(x, y, 0), where (figure 23). Figure 24 show a holographic metasurface
r = (x2 + y 2 )1/2 , k0 is the free space wavevector, that detects optical vortex beams with specific
and ns is the effective index of the surface current, orbital angular momentum (OAM) [156]. The nano-
which is assumed to be a constant and is a function structured binary holograms shown in the left panel of
of the thickness and materials of the dielectric spac- figure 24(a) were created by calculating the interference
ing layer between the metal patches and the metallic pattern between a converging surface plasmon wave
ground. They also experimentally demonstrated a ten- and an incident optical vortex beam. The simulated
sor impedance surface that converts the current gener- results in figure 24(a) show that a converging surface
ated by a monopolar antenna to a circularly polarized plasmon wave is generated only when an optical vortex
far-field radiation propagating along 45◦ direction (fig- beam with the correct OAM is scattered by the
ure 21(d) and (f)). hologram. Experimental results in figure 24(b) show
Maci and colleagues used the same holographic that a hologram can distinguish an optical vortex beam
principle to demonstrate metasurfaces with modulated with OAM of −1 from optical vortex beams with other
surface impedance [153, 154]. They used square patch values of OAM.
antennas of different sizes to create a spiral distribution The major challenges in coupling an incident wave
of surface impedance that converts a surface current from free space into a surface wave with high efficiency
produced by a monopolar antenna to a collimated are to suppress the reflection of the incident wave
right-handed circularly polarized far-field radiation on the device surface and to prevent decoupling of
(figure 22). Podilchak and collaborators demonstrated the surface wave back into free space. In a series
(a) of work from the Zhou group [14, 157, 158], a few
strategies were devised to address these challenges:
(1) the entire surface of the metasurface coupler is
designed to be impedance matched with free space
to minimize direct reflection; (2) the lateral effective
wavevector provided by the metasurface is designed
to be sufficiently large so that a surface wave with
a wavevector larger than the free space wavevector
is excited; the surface wave becomes even more
evanescent as it further interacts with the gradient
(b) metasurface, which prevents decoupling of the wave
back to the free space; (3) the impedance mismatch
between the supercells of the metasurface coupler is
reduced to prevent scattering of the surface wave.
Through these approaches, the authors were able
to demonstrate coupling of an incident wave from
free space into a surface wave with efficiencies of ∼
94% in simulations and ∼ 73% in experiments using
microwaves [158].
Figure 23. (a) Planar 2D leaky-wave antenna consisting of
radially directed and width-modulated microstrip lines and is 6.2. Control of surface waves
able to transform a cylindrical surface wave into leaky waves. (b)
Broadside beam pattern of the leaky-wave antenna. Solid and The examples that have been discussed in this section
dashed curves are, respectively, measured and simulated beam so far are all about coupling surface waves and waves
patterns at ∼ 22 GHz. Used with permission from [155]. propagating in free space using metasurfaces. The
subject of controlling the propagation of surface waves
confined to a 2D plane is a new frontier of metasurface
research.
Vakil and Engheta proposed using graphene as an
(a) Li = –1 Li = 0 Li = +1 ultra-thin platform for controlling in-plane propagation
of infrared electromagnetic waves [159]. They demon-
I (Arbitary units)
1 strated theoretically that by designing and manipulat-
Lg = 0
ing spatially inhomogeneous conductivity patterns on
a sheet of graphene using the electric field effect, one
0.5 can realize a number of transformation optical devices.
The example of a graphene metasurface Luneberg lens
Lg = 1 is shown in figure 25(a). The research group of S.
0
Maci used patch antennas of different sizes or metallic
Ei 90 1
(b) ϑ° 120 pins of different heights to demonstrate two types of
0.8 60
in-plane planar lenses (Luneberg lenses and Maxwell’s
0.6
150 0.4 30 fish-eye [153]; the latter is shown in figure 25(b)). In
0.2 their pioneering work, Gok and Grbic used the concept
of transformation electromagnetics to demonstrate in-
Gaussian 180 ϑ° 0
dependent control of the power flow and phase progres-
Li = –1
sion of electromagnetic fields in a 2D space (figure 25(c)
Li = +1
210 330 and (d)) [160]. The resulting metasurface is a highly
Li = +2
inhomogeneous, anisotropic media where each unit cell
Li = –2 240 300 is characterized by a 2 × 2 permeability tensor in the
270
plane and a scalar permittivity in the surface normal
direction. These parameters were judicially chosen to
Figure 24. (a) Left panel: metasurface holograms for detecting
optical vortex beams. Right panel: simulation results of the create stipulated 2D distributions of wavevector and
intensity distribution of surface plasmon waves generated by Poynting vector, as well as to ensure impedance match-
illuminating the holograms at normal incidence with different ing between the adjacent unit cells so that there is no
optical vortex beams. (b) Photocurrent as a function of incident
reflection and scattering of the surface wave as it prop-
polarization measured for a metasurface hologram designed for
detecting optical vortex beams with orbital angular momentum agates on the metasurface.
of Li = −1. Used with permission from [156]. The concept of metasurfaces has been introduced
(a) L
w (c)
y x
z
2
1
z
D y
x
0 2 (f)
(d) -5 Ez (V/m)
Simulated (Boundary 1) Ideal (Boundary 1)
Simulated (Boundary 2) Ideal (Boundary 2)
0 2π
(b)
Figure 25. (a) Luneburg lens based on graphene metasurface. Shown is the simulated phase of Ey of the surface plasmon at 30
THz on the graphene. D = 1.5 µm, w = 75 nm, and L = 1.6 µm. (b) Snapshot of the field in a metasurface Maxwell’s fish-eye
lens consisting of pins of different heights on a grounded slab and curvilinear trajectory of the real part of the Poynting vector. (c)
Snapshot of simulated, vertical electric field (Ez ) of a metasurface that transforms a cylindrical surface wave into a surface wave
with trapezoidal power density and linear phase progression. (d) Upper panel: simulated and ideal power densities along boundary
1 and boundary 2. Lower panel: phase profiles along boundary 1 and boundary 2. (e) Schematic of a telecom TE00 -to-TM10 mode
converter consisting of silicon phased array antennas patterned on a Si3 N4 waveguide. The phase response is due to the optical Mie
resonance in the silicon nanorod. (f) Simulated field evolution in the mode converter. (g) Purity of the converted TM10 mode as a
function of wavelength, showing that the mode converter works over a broad wavelength range. (a) used with permission from [159],
(b) used with permission from [153], (c) and (d) used with permission from [160], (e)-(f) used with permission from [161, 162].
into the field of integrated photonics where 1D phased tive control of metamaterials and metasurfaces extends
array antennas patterned on optical waveguides enable their exotic passive properties by allowing fine reso-
the control of optical power flow and mode coupling nance tuning to adapt to the operational conditions,
in the waveguides. The 1D antenna array introduces and enabling a switchable resonant response, for in-
a unidirectional phase gradient dΦ/dx, where dΦ is stance, for signal modulation in communication and
the difference in phase response between adjacent imaging. Furthermore, the concentration of optical
antennas that are separated from each other by a power in metasurface resonators integrated with op-
subwavelength distance of dx. The phase gradient tical nonlinear materials can dramatically enhance the
is equivalent to a unidirectional effective wavevector nonlinear response, as predicted in Pendry’s original
∆k along the waveguide, which leads to directional work on SRRs [15]. As compared to bulk metamateri-
coupling of waveguide modes. That is, optical power als, the planar configuration of metasurfaces facilitates
couples preferentially from one waveguide mode to the integration of active functional materials. A vari-
a second waveguide mode, whereas optical coupling ety of functional materials providing tunable refractive
from the second mode back to the first one is highly indices through thermal excitation, voltage bias, mag-
inefficient. As a result, the phase matching conditions netic field, optical pump, or mechanical deformation
are greatly relaxed, which enables the demonstration have been successfully incorporated into metasurfaces.
of extremely broadband and robust waveguide mode In particular, semiconductors and graphene become
conversion (figure 25(e-g)) [161, 162]. the materials of choice for electrically tunable active
metasurfaces.
7. Active metasurfaces
Active devices and components play a critical role in

modern electromagnetic and photonic systems. Ac-
(a) 37 (c) gold (e)
3
silicon
5
8.5
3 sapphire
37
Au Si
Sapphire
20 μm
(b) 1.0 (d) 1.0 (f)

Unpumped
Normalized Transmittance
10 mW
0.8 0.8 20 mW
Transmission t(ω)
Pump (mW) 50 mW
100 mW
0.6 0 0.6 200 mW
10 500 mW
20
0.4 50 0.4
100
0.2 200 0.2
500
0.0 0.0
0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1.25 1.50 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Frequency (THz) Frequency (THz)
Figure 26. Optically tunable THz metal/semiconductor hybrid metasurfaces. (a) SEM image of an electric SRR unit cell of a
frequency tunable THz metasurface. (b) Upon photoexcitation of the silicon bars, the gap capacitance increases, which results in
a lower resonance frequency. (c) Optical microscopy image of an ultra broadband THz modulator. (d) Without photoexcitation,
the transmission is high at the low frequency side of the Lorentzian resonance of the gold grid; upon photoexcitation of the silicon
region, it becomes effectively a wire grating showing low transmission. (e) Schematic (left panel) and optical microscopy image (right
panel) of a THz metamaterial absorber consisting of silicon pads integrated at the gaps of SRRs. (f) Photoexcitation dramatically
tunes the property from dual-band to a broadband absorption. (a) and (b) used with permission from [163], (c) and (d) used with
permission from [164], (e) and (f) used with permission from [165].
7.1. Actively switchable and frequency tunable cell. Under photoexcitation with near-infrared light,
metal/semiconductor hybrid metasurfaces the silicon bars become metallic, which increases the
SRR capacitance. Therefore, the frequency of the
The conductivity of semiconductors can be increased
SRR LC resonance is tuned to a lower frequency
by orders of magnitude through doping, and thus
with the tuning range of about 20% [163], as shown
semiconductors can be converted into plasmonic
in figure 26(b). A variety of similar structures were
materials in the infrared and spectral ranges with
demonstrated, resulting in a blue shift of the resonance
longer wavelengths. Active tuning of the conductivity
frequency [170].
can be realized by carrier injection and depletion
Optically modifying the metasurface geometric
through photoexcitation and voltage bias. Such
structure enables the transition between different types
a unique capability makes semiconductors ideal
of resonances. In figure 26(c) silicon is integrated
materials for integration into metamaterial structures
at the gaps of a metal patch array that exhibits a
to accomplish active and dynamic functionalities,
dipolar resonance without photoexcitation and allows
particularly in the microwave and THz frequency
high transmission below the resonance frequency.
range. Varactor diodes have been widely used to
Under photoexcitation, the metallic silicon connects
realize frequency tunable and nonlinear response [166,
the metal patches, effectively forming a metal wire
167] in microwave metasurfaces. At THz frequencies,
grating that blocks the low frequency THz waves,
SRR arrays can be directly fabricated on top of
as shown in figure 26(d), and resulting in ultra
semiconducting substrates such as intrinsic silicon
broadband THz modulation [164]. Recently, optically
and gallium arsenide, and the resonant response
tunable THz metamaterial perfect absorbers [165] were
can be tuned through photoexcitation of free charge
demonstrated, as shown in figure 26(e) and (f), where
carriers at the substrate surface [168], resulting in
silicon islands are located at the gaps of electric SRRs.
an ultrafast switching speed [169]. Furthermore,
Using such an approach, a variety of optical responses
semiconductors can be used as part of the resonant
can be switched/tuned via photoexcitation, such as
structure. In this case, photoexcitation dynamically
the handedness of chiral metasurfaces [171, 172] and
modifies the structural geometry of the resonator,
plasmonic electromagnetically induced transparency
enabling switchable or frequency tunable response. As
(EIT) [173].
shown in figure 26(a), a pair of silicon bars form a
Semiconducting hybrid metasurfaces feature elec-
part of the capacitive gap in an electric SRR unit
trical tuning of resonances via the application of a volt-
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
103
Intensity at 36° (arb. units)

22 dB
102
Schottky 101
1272 μm
100
10-1 Alternate columns biased

All columns biased
10-2
1 2 3 4 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
Frequency (THz)
(e) (f)
Figure 27. Electrical modulation of metal/semiconductor hybrid metasurfaces. (a) Schematic of a unit cell of a high-speed
THz metasurface modulator based on double-channel heterostructures. (b) Modulation performance at different frequencies. (c)
Schematic of an active THz metasurface diffraction grating formed by 32 columns controlled by independent voltage biases, where
different colors indicate different voltage biases. (d) Dynamic diffraction is enabled by applying reverse voltage biases to alternate
columns. An unprecedented modulation depth of 22 dB is accomplished at the designed operation frequency of 0.4 THz. (e) THz
spatial modulator with 8 × 8 pixels based on electrically switchable THz metasurface absorbers and used for THz compressive
imaging, and (f) the corresponding device schematic consisting of a linked array of metallic resonators making Schottky contacts
with an underlying n-doped semiconductor spacer, a metal ground plane serving as the ohmic contact, as well as the accessory
structure enabling independent voltage biases to the pixels. (a) and (b) used with permission from [179], (c) and (d) used with
permission from [180], (e) and (f) used with permission from [178].
age bias, which is more convenient and practical for ap- 4 pixels was realized to demonstrate reconfigurable
plications. The most prominent examples are the inte- interference patterns of double slits [181]. THz
gration of varactor diodes for microwaves and Schottky metasurface spatial light modulators with a larger
junctions for THz frequencies. The first demonstra- number of pixels are possible, although the increasing
tion of an electrically switchable THz metasurface fea- number of electrical connecting wires makes them
tured an unprecedented 50% modulation depth [174], more complicated. One solution to this problem
which was further improved to 80% through structural is a reflection-mode metasurface spatial modulator
optimization [175]. Together with the causally con- based on an electrically tunable metamaterial absorber
nected phase modulation (up to 0.55 rad), this device structure [178]. As shown in figure 27(f), a linked
allows broadband THz modulation [174] that can be array of resonators and an underlying semiconductor
used to replace a mechanical optical chopper in a lock- layer create Schottky junctions, and a metal ground
in THz detection scheme with modulation speed in the plane serves as the ohmic contact. Application of a
MHz range [176–178], limited either by the large de- reverse voltage bias enables tuning the frequency of
vice area accompanied by high stray capacitance or the resonant absorption, with modulation speeds up to
parasitic capacitance from the bonding electrodes and 10 MHz. This type of THz spatial modulators based
wires. Very recently, GHz electronic modulation speed on metamaterial absorbers, shown in figure 27(e),
has been demonstrated by using double-channel het- have been recently successfully employed in THz
erostructures supporting nanoscale 2DEGs with high compressive imaging [182].
carrier concentration and mobility [179], shown in fig-
ure 27(a). Through designing a composite hybrid 7.2. Graphene hybrid metasurfaces
metasurface structure to reduce the stray capacitance,
1 GHz modulation speed, 85% modulation depth (fig- Except for fabrication of metallic metasurface struc-
ure 27(b)), and a phase shift of 1.19 rad were experi- tures directly on a substrate such as those shown in
mentally realized during real-time dynamic tests. Fur- figure 27(a) and (c), integration of crystalline semi-
thermore, a wireless free space modulation THz com- conductor films or islands into the critical regions of
munication system based on this external THz mod- more complex metasurfaces (e.g., the structure shown
ulator was tested using 0.2 Gbps eye patterns. This in figure 26 and figure 27(f) as well as other few-
accomplishment opens an avenue toward the develop- layer metasurfaces) poses significant fabrication chal-
ment of high performance THz wireless communication lenges [186] mainly due to the requirement of nano-
and imaging systems. lithography or transferring fragile semiconductor thin
In recent work, an electrically driven THz meta- films. In this sense, the excellent mechanical properties
surface active diffraction grating was demonstrated to and the tunable carrier density of graphene make it an
realize background-free THz modulation with an un- excellent material to enable active metasurfaces [187].
precedented 22 dB of dynamic range [180]. Each “grat- Graphene has largely tunable optical conductivity in
ing finger” consists of an array of electrically connected the mid-infrared and THz frequency ranges. The dop-
and switchable SRRs forming a column that is con- ing of graphene can be adjusted through changing the
trolled by an independent voltage bias, as shown in bias voltage by a factor of 10 at room temperature,
figure 27(c). The diffractive metasurface grating is cre- which leads to a large change in its sheet conductiv-
ated by applying a voltage bias to alternate columns ity σ and therefore the in-plane electric permittivity
within the 32-column metasurface structure, result- k = 1 + iσ/(0 ωt), where t = 0.33 nm is the thickness
ing in a frequency dependent diffraction angle for the of single-layer graphene.
incident broadband THz radiation. At the metasur- The resonant response of metasurfaces is of
face resonance frequency of 0.4 THz, the diffraction is particular importance to enhance interactions between
strongest because of the largest transmission contrast atomically thin graphene sheets and mid-infrared
between two neighboring columns. However, when the and THz radiation. Metallic plasmonic antennas
same voltage bias is applied to each of the columns, are able to capture light from free space and
the structure behaves as a uniform metasurface with concentrate optical energy into subwavelength spots.
no observable diffraction. Therefore, application of an The electric field at these spots can be two to
AC voltage to alternate columns results in background- three orders of magnitude larger than the incident
free diffractive modulation of the incident THz radia- field. By placing graphene in the hot spots created
tion, as shown in figure 27(d). by metallic plasmonic antennas and by tuning the
Spatial light modulators have been realized by optical conductivity of graphene, one can switch
pixelating the metasurface for independent control of the resonance or tune the resonance frequency of
reflection, transmission, or their phase. A prototype the composite over a wide range. In the THz
THz metasurface spatial light modulator with 4 × frequency range, intraband transitions in graphene
sheets have been used to demonstrate broadband
(a) (d) (g)
3 μm
(b) (e)
(c) (f)
(h) 25
carrier density
20 ( 1013 cm -2 )
15 0.32
ΔA (%)
0.66
10 0.95
5 1.42
1.42 (bare)
0
5
1000 2000 3000 4000
Frequency (cm-1)
Figure 28. Electrically tunable graphene-based metasurfaces. (a) Schematic of an ultrathin mid-infrared modulator based on a
tunable metasurface absorber. (b) SEM image of the metasurface absorber. Inset: a zoomed-in view of a portion of the device. (c)
Measured reflection spectra (normalized to the reflection spectrum of an aluminum mirror) of the metasurface absorber in (b) at
different gate voltages |VG − VCNP |, where VCNP is the gate voltage when the concentrations of electrons and holes in the graphene
sheet are equal, i.e., charge neutral point (CNP). (d) SEM image of a metasurface structure exhibiting dual Fano resonances. (e)
Average near-field intensity enhancement η on graphene surface. Insets: spatial distribution of η inside the gap for the two Fano
resonances. (f) Measured reflection spectra of the device in (d) as a function of the Fermi energy. (g) Schematic of a metasurface
modulator based on a graphene Salisbury screen. The inset illustrates the device with the optical waves at the resonance condition.
(h) Change in absorption with respect to the absorption at CNP in 40-nm-wide graphene nanoapertures at various doping levels.
The solid black curve corresponds to bare (unpatterned) graphene. The inset: AFM image of graphene nanoapertures with 40 nm
width. (a)-(c) used with permission from [183], (d)-(f) used with permission from [184], (g) and (h) used with permission from [185].
electrical modulation [188], and patterned graphene a certain wavelength λ [183].

structures have been shown to exhibit resonant A narrow spectral width is essential for realizing a
plasmonic response [189, 190]. Integrating graphene high modulation depth based on resonance frequency
into metallic resonators has enabled the demonstration tuning. For this purpose one may integrate graphene
of THz metasurface electrical modulators [191–193]. into metasurfaces that exhibit high Q-factor Fano
Mid-infrared metasurfaces with electrically tun- resonances, such as the one shown in figure 28(d),
able spectral properties have been experimentally which consists of an array of connected dipole and
demonstrated by controlling the carrier density of monopole resonators fabricated on top of a thin
graphene [194]. Optimizing optical antenna designs silicon dioxide layer on a silicon substrate [184].
has improved both the frequency tuning range and the This metasurface structure exhibits double plasmonic
modulation depth [195]. In figure 28(a), the upper electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) as
metasurface layer is separated from a back aluminum illustrated by the two near-field intensity enhancement
mirror by a thin aluminum oxide film. Such a reflect- peaks in figure 28(e) and two reflection minima in
array structure exhibits nearly perfect absorption [183]. figure 28(f). The graphene-SiO2 -silicon structure
That is, at the OFF state the reflection is nearly zero, also enables back-gating to tune the graphene carrier
and the frequency at which near-zero reflection occurs density, which consequently tunes the Fano resonances
can be tuned by applying a voltage bias that modi- (figure 28(f)). At a specific wavelength, it results in
fies the dispersion of the top graphene-antenna array high reflection “ON” and low reflection “OFF” states
(figure 28(c)). This approach provides a modulation with an experimentally measured modulation depth
speed in the tens of MHz range and an optical modu- up to 90%, though the insertion loss of 81% is still
lation depth close to 100% with the latter defined as rather high and the bandwidth is also rather small
1−Rmin (λ)/Rmax (λ) where Rmin (λ) and Rmax (λ) are (a few percent of the operational wavelength) [184].
the minimum and maximum achievable reflectivity at Phase modulation has been also shown recently in
a similar graphene hybrid metasurface in the mid- (a)

infrared, which can be potentially used for motion
sensing and tunable waveplates [196].
Electrically tunable metasurfaces can be made of
structured graphene sheets without utilizing metallic
plasmonic antennas. Figure 28(g) shows a reflect-
array mid-infrared modulator consisting of graphene
nanoapertures (i.e., voids cut into a graphene sheet)
(b)
separated from a metallic back mirror by a thin film of
Si3 N4 [197]. The width of the nanoapertures is chosen
to be in the range of 20-60 nm, so that incident mid-
infrared light can excite plasmonic resonances in the
nanoapertures, leading to strongly enhanced optical
absorption of up to 25%. As the bias voltage changes
the carrier doping of the perforated graphene sheet,
the plasmonic resonances shift, giving rise to tunable
amplitude and spectral position of the absorption
peaks (figure 28(h)).
7.3. Other resonance switchable and frequency tunable

metasurfaces
While electrically tunable metasurfaces integrated (c)
with semiconductors and graphene are of utmost
importance in applications, there are a variety of
other functional materials and structures that have
been successfully used to realize active metasurfaces.
When a THz metallic SRR array was fabricated
directly on top of a strontium titanate (STO)
substrate (a phase transition material), the resonance
frequency experiences a red-shift with decreasing
temperature, due to the increasing refractive index
of the STO substrate, although it suffers from
significant insertion loss due to the high refractive
index of the STO substrate [199]. Vanadium dioxide
(VO2 ) exhibits thermally driven insulator-to-metal Figure 29. (a) Schematic showing electrolyte gating of VO2 -
based metasurfaces. (b) Phase diagram of VO2 . (c) Voltage
phase transition and has attracted great interest in dependent THz transmission spectra of the device in (a) at 315K.
realizing thermally active metasurfaces at THz and Insets: photos of gold SRRs sitting on VO2 before the ionic gel
infrared frequencies [200–205]. The hysteresis of its is applied. Used with permission from [198].
phase transition has been utilized to demonstrate
metasurface memory devices [201]. The resonance
of metasurfaces based on VO2 can be also switched Liquid crystals can be also conveniently integrated
through the application of a voltage bias [198]. In the with metasurface structures, and help realize electri-
latter case, a thin layer of ionic gel was applied on the cally tunable spectral properties when the refractive
surface of the metasurface (figure 29(a)). Application index of liquid crystals is adjusted [206, 207]. The fre-
of positive (negative) voltage selectively tunes the quency tuning range is, however, quite limited and the
metasurface resonance into the “OFF” (“ON”) state operation speed is slow. THz superconducting meta-
by inducing the VO2 film into a more conductive surfaces consisting of resonant elements made of su-
(insulating) state. In particular, a positive voltage perconducting films instead of the typically used met-
drives the following electrochemical reaction: VO2 + als have shown outstanding switching and frequency
2x e− → VO2−x + x O2− , so that VO2 goes across the tuning behaviors via thermal control [208–211] or pho-
boundary between the insulating and metallic states toexcitation [212], although this only applies to mi-
following the pink solid arrow in figure 29(b). As a crowave and THz frequencies, limiting the applica-
result, application of positive voltages damps the SRR tions of active superconducting metasurfaces. Last but
resonance, with 3 volts yielding complete suppression not least, integration of micro-electro-mechanical sys-
of the resonance (figure 29(c)). tems (MEMS) into metasurfaces has enabled reconfig-
urable resonances by changing the geometry of the res- a reduced carrier mobility or increased carrier density,
onant elements through thermal or electrostatic actu- thereby either damping or strengthening the metasur-
ation [213–217]. face resonant response. Strong THz nonlinear response
was also observed in superconducting metasurfaces un-
7.4. Nonlinear metasurfaces der intense THz radiation [221, 222]. Although the en-
ergy of a THz photon is well below that required to
(a) (b) 0.7 directly break a Cooper pair upon absorption and the
applied THz pulses do not significantly raise the sam-
ple temperature, the transmission measurements reveal
0.6 LC
Transmission
significant field-strength-dependent transmission spec-
Dipole
500 μm
tra at various temperatures. It would be expected that
ETHz 0.5
the intense THz field can accelerate electrons that gain
sufficiently high kinetic energy to induce Cooper pair
Gold Gold 0.3
VO2 0.7 breaking, which damps the resonance similar to the
VO2 1.7
0.4 2.3 cases of resonance switching and frequency tuning un-
Gold 3.3
der thermal and optical excitation.
ETHz 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
VO2
Conventionally, the phase matching condition in
Frequency (THz)
nonlinear processes, such as second harmonic genera-
Figure 30. (a) Top panel: optical image of an array of gold tion (SHG), has to be satisfied in bulk nonlinear crys-
electric SRRs fabricated on top of a VO2 film showing THz-field- tals to achieve efficient nonlinear optical generation.
induced damage illustrated by the black spots at the split gaps. Under the condition of perfect phase matching, non-
The dashed blue circle approximates the THz beam waist, and linearly generated optical signals constructively build
the red curve approximates the THz intensity profile. Bottom
panels: SEM images of a single SRR show that VO2 is damaged up, and optical power is continuously transferred from
by the vertically polarized THz field, with an expanded view the pump(s) to the nonlinear optical signal. Metasur-
of damage at the edge of the THz beam (right top) and near faces greatly relax the requirement for phase match-
the beam centre (right bottom). (b) Experimental data showing
ing as nonlinear processes occur within metasurfaces
incident field-dependent nonlinear transmission spectra of SRRs
on VO2 at 324 K, for in-gap fields ranging from 0.3 to 3.3 that have significantly reduced thicknesses. Giant
MV/cm. Used with permission from [218]. second-harmonic (SH) response (figure 31(a-c)) has
been experimentally demonstrated in plasmonic meta-
The abilities of metasurfaces to promote light- surfaces integrated with nonlinear media [223]. Specif-
matter interaction and manipulate local optical po- ically, InGaAs/AlInAs multiple quantum wells were
larizations are ideally suited to enhance nonlinear op- used as the nonlinear media, which exhibit giant and
tical effects. This is particularly significant in the electrically tunable nonlinear coefficients in the mid-
THz frequency range due to the difficulties in gen- infrared [225–227]. The plasmonic metasurfaces were
erating high-power THz radiation. The concentra- designed to not only enhance the local fields of both
tion of incident THz waves relaxes the requirement the pump and SH signal, but also to manipulate the
of a strong THz source, and further reveals the ul- near-field polarization, as the relevant field components
trafast dynamics of electronic responses initiated by involved in the harmonic generation are the ones nor-
the intense THz pulses. An excellent example is mal to the quantum wells (due to the selection rules for
the THz-field-induced insulator-to-metal transition in intersubband transitions within quantum wells [228]).
metal/VO2 hybrid metasurfaces, where an array of The nonlinear metasurfaces achieved a nonlinear con-
electric SRRs were fabricated on top of a VO2 film version efficiency of ∼ 2 × 10−6 using a pump intensity
(figure 30(a)) [218]. It was shown that the transmis- of only 15 kW/cm2 [223], corresponding to an effective
sion spectra depend on the incident field strength, as second-order nonlinear coefficient of χ(2) ∼ 30 nm/V,
shown in figure 30(b), due to the phase transition of about three orders of magnitude larger than that of
VO2 that is initiated by Poole-Frenkel electron libera- LiNbO3 . Even larger χ(2) ∼ 250 nm/V has been ex-
tion, followed by lattice equilibration on a picosecond perimentally demonstrated in a nonlinear metasurface
timescale. The incident few hundreds kV/cm THz field consisting of an array of SRRs and InGaAs/AlInAs
is resonantly enhanced to the MV/cm level within the multiple quantum wells (figure 31(d,e)) [224]. The
split gap, which is then sufficient to induce irreversible two plasmonic resonances of the SRRs enhance, respec-
damage of the VO2 film, as shown in figure 30(a). tively, the pump and SH signal (figure 31(d)).
Such a methodology has been further applied to in- These demonstrations have followed the original
vestigate nonlinear metasurfaces integrated with semi- proposal of using SRRs by Pendry in 1999, where the
conductors such as gallium arsenide and indium ar- resonance would localize electromagnetic energy within
senide [219, 220], where the electric field induces in- the small split-gaps and dramatically enhance nonlin-
tervalley scattering or impact ionization, resulting in
(a) (b) 600 (c) FF intensity squared (kW2 cm–4)

z 0 50 100 150 200 250
0.16
145 500 yyy xxx 0.06
y
SH inensity (W cm–2)
yxx xyy 23
Energy (meV)
3
SH power (μW)
Au 200 110 400 0.12
x E32 = 153 meV
Z32 = 2.2 nm 57 μW W–2 0.04
800 300
2 0.08 11
MQW E21 = 153 meV Z31= 0.69 nm
200
Pt Z21 = 1.7 nm 24 0.02
950 0.04 5
Au 100 1
2
InP substr 160 0 0.00 0.00
ate
0 5 10 15 20 0.0 2.0×10–3 4.0×10–3 6.0×10–3
Thickness (nm) FF power squared (W2)
(e)
(d)
Figure 31. (a) Unit cell of the SHG metasurface. Dimensions of the gold nanocross are given in nm, and the unit cell has a dimension
of 1000 nm × 1300 nm. (b) Conduction band diagram of one period of an In0.53 Ga0.47 As/Al0.48 In0.52 As coupled quantum well
structure designed as the nonlinear media for highly efficient SHG. The moduli squared of the electron wavefunctions for subbands
1, 2 and 3 are shown and labelled accordingly. Transitions between pairs of electron subbands are marked with double-headed red
arrows, and the values of the transition energies (E21 and E32 ) and dipole moments (Z21 , Z32 and Z31 ) are shown next to each
arrow. (c) SHG from metasurfaces based on (a) and (b). Shown are SH peak power (left axis) and intensity (right axis) as a function
of pump peak power squared (bottom axis) or peak intensity squared (top axis) at a pump wavenumber of 1240 cm−1 for different
input/output polarization combinations. (d) Left panel: Schematic of a metasurface consisting of SRRs on top of a stack of MQWs.
Upper right panel: Top view of one SRR. Lower right panel: Schematic showing the two main resonant modes of the SRR at the
pump and SH frequency, respectively. (e) Intensity of the SH signal propagating in the forward and backward directions with respect
to the nonlinear metasurface in (d) as a function of pump intensity. (a)-(c) used with permission from [223], (d) and (e) used with
ear response in materials being introduced [15]. Most ometry of resonators, particularly the asymmetry ra-
experimental demonstrations of nonlinear metamate- tio, plays a critical role as it governs the spatial over-
rials have been mainly focused in the microwave fre- lap of the resonant modes at the pump and harmonic
quency range using packaged nonlinear electronic ele- frequencies [238]. Although the nonlinear coefficients
ments, such as varactor diodes, to introduce nonlinear- were often enhanced by orders of magnitude compared
ity into the gaps of the metal resonators, resulting in to common nonlinear crystals, the absolute conversion
nonlinear functionalities such as bistability [229, 230], efficiency is still rather low. Further improvement is
resonance tunability [166, 231], and harmonic gener- non-trivial and cannot be realized by simply stacking
ation [232, 233]. In the optical frequency regime, in multi-layers for larger interaction thickness due to the
addition to the difficulty in packaging nonlinear ma- impedance and propagation phase mismatches.
terials, it is challenging to fabricate bulk metamate- A step further is the demonstration of nonlinear
rials consisting of complex three-dimensional nanos- phased arrays that radiate generated SH signals into
tructures, and utilize their thickness to enhance non- different directions depending on their polarization
linear response. Experimental work has been scarce states [239]. In the metasurface structure shown in
as compared to its microwave counterpart. One of figure 32(a), the top row of six identical resonators
the focuses has been harmonic generation using sin- within the unit cell generate a single u-polarized
gle layer metal SRR arrays (tens of nanometer thick- broadside beam, shown in the right panel of
ness) excited at their magnetic resonance [234, 235], figure 32(b), at the SH frequency. In the bottom
where the nonlinearity is associated with the dynamics row of four resonators within the unit cell, the left
of free and bound charges, particularly at the metal two resonators have a π phase difference as compared
surface [236]. This seems to be also responsible for to the right two resonators, as the local effective
the recently observed broadband THz generation under second-order nonlinear coefficient χ(2) changes sign
femtosecond near-infrared laser excitation in an array when the orientation of a SRR rotates by 180◦ .
of gold SRRs [237]. It was also shown that the ge- Together they generate two v-polarized beams at ±40◦
(a) 0 10
(b) –20–10 20 –20–10
0 10
20
–30 30 –30 30
–40 40 –40 40
–50 50 –50 50
–60 60 –60 60
u
Unpolarized
v-polarized
v 5 μm u-polarized
(c) 540 nm (d) Z = 0 mm (e)
Transverse
20
axis (µm)
m=3 m=1
0
−20
Transverse
20
axis (µm)
m=3 m=1
0
Z = 1 mm −20
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Z (mm)
Figure 32. (a) SEM image of a portion of a nonlinear metasurface that radiates SH signal of different polarizations into different
directions (i.e., polarizing beam splitter for SH signal). A unit cell of the metasurface is denoted by the red rectangle. (b) Measured
far-field profiles for the metasurface in (a) for two orthogonal polarizations of the SH radiation when the pump beam is polarized
along the vertical direction. (c) SEM image of a portion of a nonlinear metasurface Fresnel zone plate (FZP) showing mirror inversion
of SRRs in adjacent zones that radiate SH waves with opposite phases. Arrows mark the effective χ(2) direction. (d) Recorded
images of SH signal at a distance of Z = 0 and Z = 1 mm from the metasurface in (c). (e) Upper and lower panels are, respectively,
simulation and measurement results showing the focusing of SH signal by the FZP (m denotes focusing order). (a) and (b) used
with permission from [239], (c)-(e) used with permission from [240].
as shown in the left panel of figure 32(b), where encountered during the earlier development of meta-
the radiation angles are determined by the period of surfaces. Active and nonlinear metasurfaces represent
the metasurface structure. The same effect was used an important research direction that will greatly ex-
to demonstrate complex wavefront engineering of the pand metasurface functionalities and applications. As
SH signal generated from metasurfaces consisting of a rapidly developing research field that has attracted
gold SRRs (figure 32(c-e)) [240]. Here the surface world wide interest, it would be impossible (and not
second-order nonlinearity of gold leads to SHG. In necessary) to include every aspect of its past success.
experiments a nonlinear Fresnel zone plate (FZP) was For instance, we have not included metasurfaces for
demonstrated, which focuses the SH signal to the focal antireflection coatings [85, 241], photonic spin Hall ef-
spots of the plate, leading to a large enhancement of fects in metasurfaces [242] and ultrathin invisibility
the SH intensity. cloaks [243].
We see a number of promising areas in fundamen-
8. Summary and outlook tal research and practical applications where metasur-
faces could have an important impact:
Metamaterials and metasurfaces have led to the real- (1) Dispersionless flat lenses. Flat lenses that are
ization of novel electromagnetic properties and func- able to correct chromatic aberration over a broad wave-
tionalities through tailoring subwavelength structures length range, and reduce spherical aberration, coma,
and integrating functional materials. In this paper and other monochromatic aberrations, could revolu-
we have reviewed the recent development of two- tionize optical instrumentation. Substantially shrink-
dimensional metamaterials – metasurfaces – by intro- ing the complexity and size of optical instruments (e.g.,
ducing the fundamental concepts, physical realization, replacing the entire set of compound lenses in a camera
and their promising applications in the control and lens with a few dispersionless and aberration-corrected
manipulation of electromagnetic waves at frequencies flat lenses) seems feasible in view of recent develop-
ranging from microwave to visible light. One of our fo- ments of metasurface lenses.
cuses is on the creation of an arbitrary phase profile for (2) Optical modulators and spatial light modu-
wavefront control and beam forming using both metal- lators (SLMs) in the mid-infrared and THz spectral
lic and dielectric metasurfaces. Another focus is on the range. The lack of compact and fast modulators and
few-layer metasurfaces that address the efficiency issue SLMs has been a big challenge that prevents the wide
applications of mid-infrared and THz technology in of radiative heat transfer, infrared camouflage and
free-space communications, imaging, LIDAR (light de- structural coloration.
tection and ranging), and homeland security (e.g., re- (4) New material platforms for metasurfaces.
mote sensing, surveillance, and navigation in severe en- Investigations of materials with low losses, tunability,
vironments, such as foggy and dusty weather). Meta- high melting point, and CMOS compatibility for
surfaces provide an ideal platform to create flat mod- metamaterials and metasurfaces have been very active
ulators in the mid-infrared and THz regimes as they in recent years. Transition-metal nitrides such as
enable a strong interaction between light and materi- TiN show comparable optical properties as gold in
als with tunable optical properties, and allow for in- the visible and infrared but have much higher melting
troducing spatially-varying optical response. Strong points [249–251], a property that can be explored
light-material interactions enabled by metasurfaces al- for metasurface applications involving high optical
low for reducing the amount of tunable materials used intensity. Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs)
so that one can increase the modulation speed. such as indium-tin-oxide enable one to control the
(3) Radiative cooling metasurfaces. Metasurfaces spectral location of the epsilon-near-zero point, which
that possess exceptional thermoregulatory properties is associated with enhanced optical near-fields; the
have been an emerging field of research and have the resulting strong interaction between light and TCOs
potential to make an important technological impact. can be exploited for optical modulation [252, 253]
Fan and colleagues are pioneering the research on and nonlinear optics. Phase-change materials such as
radiative cooling metasurfaces [244–246], which have chalcogenide alloys that have been used in rewritable
strong reflectivity in the solar radiation spectrum and CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs, can be switched
enhanced emissivity in the thermal radiation spectrum. between the amorphous and crystalline states by laser
Metasurfaces based on multilayered thin films have or electrical current pulses with controlled duration
demonstrated in experiments passive cooling of objects and intensity [254, 255]. This material system has
to a few degrees below the ambient air temperature recently been used to demonstrate all-optical, non-
under direct sunlight [246]. Chen and colleagues volatile, metasurface switch [256], and high-resolution
recently proposed a fabric that blocks sunlight and solid-state displays [257]. SmNiO3 , a prototypical
provides passive cooling via the transmission of phase-transition perovskite nickelate, exhibits non-
thermal radiation emitted by the human body [247]. It volatile and reversible large refractive index changes
is interesting to note that radiative cooling has always over an ultra-broad spectral range, from the visible
been essential for the survival of animals living in to the long-wavelength mid-infrared. The super
harsh environmental conditions. Yu and co-workers broadband performance is due to strong electron
recently reported the thermoregulatory strategies that correlation effects [258], and this new mechanism can
enable Saharan silver ants to forage in the midday be exploited to create a variety of active photonic
sun on the desert surface where temperatures can devices.
reach 70◦ C (which is not survivable by their primary
predators). It was found that a monolayer of densely Acknowledgments
packed hairs with triangular cross-sections, in some
sense a biological “metasurface”, enhances not only H.T.C acknowledges support in part from the Los
the ant body’s reflectivity in the visible and near- Alamos National Laboratory LDRD Program. N.
infrared, where solar radiation culminates, but also its Y. acknowledges support from NSF (grant ECCS-
emissivity in the mid-infrared [248]. The combined 1307948), the AFOSR Multidisciplinary University
effect enables the ants to minimize absorption from Research Initiative program (grant FA9550-14-1-
solar radiation, and to efficiently dissipate heat back 0389), and DARPA Young Faculty Award (grant
to the surroundings via blackbody radiation. Animals D15AP00111). This work was performed, in
and plants living in extreme environments could part, at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies,
provide us valuable scientific and engineering lessons a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic
on optical design and thermal management. In general, Energy Sciences Nanoscale Science Research Center
by designing the structural hierarchy, compositional operated jointly by Los Alamos and Sandia National
heterogeneity, and local anisotropy of metasurface Laboratories. Los Alamos National Laboratory,
structures, one could create coatings that are optically an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer, is
thin and have desired spectral properties (reflectivity, operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, for
absorptivity, transmissivity, and emissivity) over an the National Nuclear Security Administration of the
extremely broad electromagnetic spectral range. Such U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-
ultra-thin and ultra-broadband metasurfaces will open AC52-06NA25396.
doors to a variety of new applications, including control
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A Review of Metasurfaces: Physics and Applications

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Review Article

A review of metasurfaces: physics and applications

Hou-Tong Chen1 , Antoinette J Taylor2 and Nanfang Yu3

1 Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los

National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA

University, New York, NY 10027, USA

Abstract. Metamaterials are composed of periodic subwavelength metal/dielectric

2 Anomalous reflection and refraction 4

3 Arbitrary phase gradient and beam forming 6

6 Metasurfaces for wave guidance and radiation 22

8 Summary and outlook 35

1. Introduction Another challenge in metamaterials is the difficult

(c) ξ = 1.14k0 (d)

metasurfaces based on Pancharatnam-Berry phase has scatterer,

on the short-wavelength side by the requirement that 3.2. Huygens’ surfaces

incidence angle. Flat lenses also have chromatic

(a) layer A [83]. Through structural tailoring, these

Figure 9. (a) Unit cell of a tri-layer ABA-type narrowband

Reflected field: imaginary part

Reflected field: imaginary part

0.2 co-polarization -0.1

Figure 11. Metasurface broadband polarization conversion in

0.4 TLL respectively. Used with permission from [56].

4.3. Asymmetric transmission and synthesize bianisotropic metasurfaces realized

(a) (b) 142], without reflection phase reversal in the latter.

Figure 15. Dielectric metasurface for broadband polarization

SiO2 environment, where the condition of equal width (a) (c)

directions. Transmission spatial phase profiles have

cumulated propagation phase. This is achieved by de-

(a) Simulation Measurement

are applied to a unit cell of the impedance (a)

Active devices and components play a critical role in

(b) 1.0 (d) 1.0 (f)

Intensity at 36° (arb. units)

10-1 Alternate columns biased

electrical modulation [188], and patterned graphene a certain wavelength λ [183].

a similar graphene hybrid metasurface in the mid- (a)

7.3. Other resonance switchable and frequency tunable

(a) (b) 600 (c) FF intensity squared (kW2 cm–4)

(c) 540 nm (d) Z = 0 mm (e)

References N, Yuan X C and Capasso F 2013 Polarization-

London A 392 45–57 [61] Chen X, Huang L, Mühlenbernd H, Li G, Bai B, Tan Q,

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