Metasurfaces are thin two-dimensional metamaterial layers that allow or inhibit the propagation of electromagnetic waves in desired directions. For example, metasurfaces have been demonstrated to produce unusual scattering properties of incident plane waves or to guide and modulate surface waves to obtain desired radiation properties. These properties have been employed, for example, to create innovative wireless receivers and transmitters. In addition, metasurfaces have recently been proposed to confine electromagnetic waves, thereby avoiding undesired leakage of energy and increasing the overall efficiency of electromagnetic instruments and devices. The main advantages of metasurfaces with respect to the existing conventional technology include their low cost, low level of absorption in comparison with bulky metamaterials, and easy integration due to their thin profile. Due to these advantages, they are promising candidates for real-world solutions to overcome the challenges posed by the next generation of transmitters and receivers of future high-rate communication systems that require highly precise and efficient antennas, sensors, active components, filters, and integrated technologies. This Roadmap is aimed at binding together the experiences of prominent researchers in the field of metasurfaces, from which explanations for the physics behind the extraordinary properties of these structures shall be provided from viewpoints of diverse theoretical backgrounds. Other goals of this endeavour are to underline the advantages and limitations of metasurfaces, as well as to lay out guidelines for their use in present and future electromagnetic devices. This Roadmap is divided into five sections: 1. Metasurface based antennas. In the last few years, metasurfaces have shown possibilities for advanced manipulations of electromagnetic waves, opening new frontiers in the design of antennas. In this section, the authors explain how metasurfaces can be employed to tailor the radiation properties of antennas, their remarkable advantages in comparison with conventional antennas, and the future challenges to be solved. 2. Optical metasurfaces. Although many of the present demonstrators operate in the microwave regime, due either to the reduced cost of manufacturing and testing or to satisfy the interest of the communications or aerospace industries, part of the potential use of metasurfaces is found in the optical regime. In this section, the authors summarize the classical applications and explain new possibilities for optical metasurfaces, such as the generation of superoscillatory fields and energy harvesters. 3. Reconfigurable and active metasurfaces. Dynamic metasurfaces are promising new platforms for 5G communications, remote sensing and radar applications. By the insertion of active elements, metasurfaces can break the fundamental limitations of passive and static systems. In this section, we have contributions that describe the challenges and potential uses of active components in metasurfaces, including new studies on non-Foster, parity-time symmetric, and non-reciprocal metasurfaces. 4. Metasurfaces with higher symmetries. Recent studies have demonstrated that the properties of metasurfaces are influenced by the symmetries of their constituent elements. Therefore, by controlling the properties of these constitutive elements and their arrangement, one can control the way in which the waves interact with the metasurface. In this section, the authors analyze the possibilities of combining more than one layer of metasurface, creating a higher symmetry, increasing the operational bandwidth of flat lenses, or producing cost-effective electromagnetic bandgaps. 5. Numerical and analytical modelling of metasurfaces. In most occasions, metasurfaces are electrically large objects, which cannot be simulated with conventional software. Modelling tools that allow the engineering of the metasurface properties to get the desired response are essential in the design of practical electromagnetic devices. This section includes the recent advances and future challenges in three groups of techniques that are broadly used to analyze and synthesize metasurfaces: circuit models, analytical solutions and computational methods.

The presence of glide symmetries in periodic structures can introduce beneficial modifications in their electromagnetic properties. The difference between glide and non-glide periodic structures is due to the distinctive coupling between their constituent sub-unit cells. In this paper, we describe the recent discoveries on the remarkable properties of glide-symmetric periodic structures, which include widened stopbands, reduced dispersion, as well as enhanced anisotropy and magnetic response. These properties are explained through canonical structures simulated with two methods: mode matching and multimode transfer-matrix analysis. We also review the recent use of these distinctive properties for solving technological problems in practical devices such as filters, gap waveguide components, low-leakage flanges, compressed lenses, low-reflected material transitions and leaky-wave antennas with applications in 5G terrestrial communication systems, millimetre-wave satellite systems and automated contactless measurement techniques.

Thin artificial surfaces that act as high frequency bandgap structures have been recently studied for the design of gap waveguides, hard surfaces, and planar lenses. Here, we propose a circuit-based method to analyze glide-symmetric corrugated metasurfaces that are embedded in a thin parallel plate waveguide. Our closed-form solution is based on rigorous analytical derivations. It achieves remarkable agreement with full-wave solvers, even when the waveguide thickness is extremely thin. In contrast, classical homogenization approaches are shown to be inaccurate for thin waveguides due to the interaction of higher order Floquet modes between the surfaces. Numerical results validate our theoretical analysis and show the utility of the proposed method.

We study the wave propagation between two glide-symmetric metallic plates drilled with periodic rectangular holes. A mode-matching method is proposed in order to derive efficiently the dispersive properties of these periodic structures. The method takes advantage of the higher symmetry of the structure reducing the computational cost by enforcing boundary conditions on the field on only one of the two surfaces. Physical insight on specific symmetry properties of Floquet harmonics in glide-symmetric structures is also gained. The code is validated with commercial software assessing its accuracy when varying the most influential/critical parameters. We confirm the potential of glide-symmetric structures to tune the effective refractive index. Specifically, we demonstrate that glide-symmetric structures with rectangular shapes can be employed to synthesize anisotropic refractive indexes with a large band of operation, which makes such metasurface structures applicable for the realization of ultrawideband planar lenses.