In this work we present the concept and design of an ultrathin (λ/22) terahertz (THz) unidirectional carpet cloak based on the local phase compensation approach enabled by gradient metasurfaces. A triangular surface bump with center height of 4.1 mm (1.1λ) and tilt angle of 20° is covered with a metasurface composed of an array of suitably designed closed ring resonators with a transverse gradient of surface impedance. The ring resonators provide a wide range of control for the reflection phase with small absorption losses, enabling efficient phase manipulation along the edge of the bump. Our numerical results demonstrate a good performance of the designed cloak in both near field and far field, and the cloaked object mimics a flat ground plane within a broad range of incidence angles, over 35° angular spectrum centered at 45°. The presented cloak design can be applied in radar and antenna systems as a thin, lightweight, and easy to fabricate solution for radio and THz frequencies.
Recent advances in designing time‐reversal‐invariant photonic topological insulators have been extended down to the deep subwavelength scale, by employing synthetic photonic matter made of dense periodic arrangements of subwavelength resonant scatterers. Interestingly, such topological metamaterial crystals support edge states that are localized in subwavelength volumes at topological boundaries, providing a unique way to design subwavelength waveguides based on engineering the topology of bulk metamaterial insulators. While the existence of these edge modes is guaranteed by topology, their robustness to backscattering is often incomplete, as time‐reversed photonic modes can always be coupled to each other by virtue of reciprocity. Unlike electronic spins which are protected by Kramers theorem, photonic spins are mostly protected by weaker symmetries like crystal symmetries or valley conservation. In this paper, we quantitatively studied the robustness of subwavelength edge modes originating from two frequently used topological designs, namely metamaterial spin‐Hall (SP) effect based on C6 symmetry, and metamaterial valley‐Hall (VH) insulators based on valley preservation. For the first time, robustness is evaluated for position and frequency disorder and for all possible interface types, by performing ensemble average of the edge mode transmission through many random realizations of disorder. In contrast to our results in the previous study on the chiral metamaterial waveguide, the statistical study presented here demonstrates the importance of the specific interface on the robustness of these edge modes and the superior robustness of the VH edge stated in both position and frequency disorder, provided one works with a zigzag interface.
A high-gain Bull's-Eye leaky-wave horn antenna working at 77 GHz with sinusoidal profile has been designed, fabricated, and experimentally measured. The influence of the number of periods on the gain and beamwidth is numerically investigated. Experimental measurements show a high gain of 28.9 dB, with low sidelobe level and a very narrow beamwidth in good agreement with results obtained from simulations.
An all-metallic steerable beam antenna composed of an ε-near-zero (ENZ) metamaterial lens is experimentally demonstrated at 144 GHz (λ0 = 2.083 mm). The ENZ lens is realized by an array of narrow hollow rectangular waveguides working just near and above the cut-off of the TE10 mode. The lens focal arc on the xz-plane is initially estimated analytically as well as numerically and compared with experimental results demonstrating good agreement. Next, a flange-ended WR-6.5 waveguide is placed along the lens focal arc to evaluate the ENZ-lens antenna steerability. A gain scan loss below 3 dB is achieved for angles up to ±15°.
6 November 2014 in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
The performance of an epsilon-near zero (ENZ) plano-concave lens is experimentally demonstrated and verified at the D-band of the millimeter-waves. The lens is comprised of an array of narrow metallic waveguides near cut-off frequency, which effectively behaves as an epsilon-near-zero medium at 144 GHz. A good matching with free space is achieved by exploiting the phenomenon of energy squeezing and a clear focus with a transmission enhancement of 15.9 dB is measured. The lens shows good radiation properties with a directivity of 17.6 dBi and low cross-polar components of -34 dB. All results are supported by numerical simulations.