Design of a Multifunctional Reconfigurable Metasurface for Polarization and Propagation Manipulation

In this paper, a multifunctional reconfigurable polarization conversion metasurface (MRPCM) is designed for controlling both the propagation and the polarization of electromagnetic wave. The proposed metasurface contains two-layered structures separated by the air layer. The top layer is composed of two back-to-back C-shaped metallic resonators, which is used to convert the polarization. The bottom layer is consisted of two orthogonal metal gratings, which works as the patterned ground. The PIN diodes are embedded on both the upper and lower layer of the patterned ground and controlled through two independent sets of external DC bias network to achieve the multi-function. The gratings serve as both the resonant structure and the PIN diode biasing lines. Therefore, no additional feeding lines are introduced, which can decrease the impact on the performance of the MRPCM. When the PIN diodes of the two layers are turned on, the MRPCM will reflect and convert the incident wave into cross-polarization. When the PIN diodes of the two layers are turned off, the dual-polarization incident waves are transmitted through the MRPCM without conversion. If the PIN diodes of the two layers are in different state, the x- (OFF-ON) and y- polarized (ON-OFF) incident waves are transmitted and their E-field are rotated by 90 degrees, respectively. Both numerical simulations and experimental results show good reconfigurable performance of the MRPCM