Metasurface-enabled beam shaping for sustainable super-resolution focusing devices

几十年来，光与物质相互作用的控制一直是科学界和工业界非常感兴趣的问题。波的传播可以通过使用各种材料和/或波传播介质的几何形状来控制。自2000年初以来，超材料（mtm）及其2D对应材料，超表面（MTSs）被提出作为实现天然材料无法实现的电磁（EM）响应的手段（Engeta N, 2006）。然而，尽管有这些不自然的影响，但它们的灵感来自大自然，由周期性排列的小金属介电几何形状组成，这些几何形状小于入射波长。这导致波观察到的是均匀介质，而不是用来制造介质的单个几何形状。这使得通过适当设计材料、排列和几何形状来定制这种人工介质的EM特性成为可能。在此过程中，MTMS和MTSs的使用为改善天线和传感器等广泛应用中的设备性能开辟了新的途径。在这个领域，mtm的发展对聚焦设备如透镜天线和成像应用有很大的好处。然而，由于其窄带设计，这种应用受到阻碍。这使得它们很难用于需要宽带响应的应用。如今，全世界都致力于设计尽可能可靠且具有可重构特性的设备。这是由于这样一个事实，有越来越多的电子废物（电子废物）正在全球生产，因为他们的设计涉及的材料：主要是金属和电介质（塑料，陶瓷等）。这些材料需要相当长的时间才能降解，从几百年到几千年不等。在这种情况下，mtm和mss遭受同样的问题，因为它们基本上是用相同的原材料制成的。因此，在这些人工电磁介质仍处于发展阶段的现阶段，解决其发展初期可能出现的环境问题是很重要的。该项目将受到mtm和MTSs广泛使用所带来的令人兴奋的机会的启发，并努力使它们在使用可持续和环保技术的同时进行可重构。我将学习有关超材料的控制物理定律，以了解所需的电磁响应，然后设计这些材料进行实验演示。与此同时，广泛的可重构和可持续材料将被测试应用于这些设计，以减轻技术浪费的问题。这将导致使用可生物降解材料的超紧凑、低成本和超分辨率成像应用的发展，同时具有可重新配置的能力。这些成像应用将在不同的频率范围内开发，重点是太赫兹频率范围，因为它为高速通信和生物医学成像等领域提供了机会。

For decades the controlling of light matter interaction has been of great interest to both the scientific and the industrial communities. The propagation of waves can be manipulated through the use of various materials and/or geometries of the medium where the wave is propagating.Since the early 2000's metamaterials (MTMs) and their 2D counterpart, metasurfaces (MTSs), have been proposed as a means of achieving electromagnetic (EM) responses which natural materials are not capable of achieving (Engeta N, 2006). However, despite these unnatural effects they are inspired by nature being composed of periodically arranged small metallic-dielectric geometries which are smaller than the incident wavelength. This results in the wave observing a homogeneous medium rather than the individual geometries used to create them. This enables the ability to tailor the EM properties of such artificial media by properly engineering the materials, arrangement and geometries used. In doing so, the use of MTMS and MTSs opens new paths to improve the performance of devices in a wide range of applications such as antennas and sensors.In this realm, the development of MTMs has been of great benefit to focusing devices such as lens-antennas and imaging applications. However, such applications have been hindered due to their narrow band designs. This causes them to be difficult for applications where broadband responses are required. Nowadays, there is a worldwide commitment to design devices as much reliable as possible and with reconfigurable properties. This is due to the fact that there is a growing amount of e-waste (electronic waste) being produced globally because of the materials involved in their design: mainly metals and dielectrics (plastics, ceramics etc.). These materials take a considerable time to degrade, from hundreds to thousands of years. In this context, MTMs and MTSs suffer from the same issue because they are basically made with the same raw materials. Therefore, it is important to address the possibility of environmental issues in the early stages of development of these artificial electromagnetic media at this stage where they are still under development.This project will be inspired by the exciting opportunities presented by the incredibly broad uses of MTMs and MTSs and working to make them reconfigurable while using sustainable and environmentally friendly technologies. I will be studying the governing physics laws with regards to metamaterials to gain an understanding of the EM responses required and then designing these materials to be demonstrated experimentally. All the while a wide range of reconfigurable and sustainable materials will be tested for their application into these designs as to alleviate the issues of technological waste. This will lead to the development of ultra-compact, low-costing and super-resolution imaging applications using biodegradable materials while having the capability of being reconfigured. These imaging applications will be developed at different frequency ranges with emphasis to the Terahertz frequency range due the opportunities it offers to fields such as high-speed communications and biomedical imaging.