Tailored and reconfigurable Huygens' metasurfaces

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The next generation of wireless networks will rely heavily on the millimetre-wave band (30GHz-300 GHz) where bandwidth is abundant in order to support emerging applications such as the Internet-of-things (IoT), 5G cellular , broadband internet service via satellites, and networked autonomous vehicles. At these frequencies, power becomes a precious commodity whereas wave propagation is dominated by line-of-sight processes. Hence industry is fiercely developing phased-array antennas such that, software-driven, dedicated beams are steered to users to save power, achieve advanced spectrum management and maintain line-of-sight connectivity. Despite spectacular advances in IC technologies at mm-wave frequencies, the deployment of such phased array antennas remains a major challenge in terms of cost and power dissipation. Therefore, there is a pressing need for transformative research on how to manipulate electromagnetic waves at will, beyond traditional phased arrays. In this project we will address this challenge using the new paradigm of the Huygens' metasurface: Engineered electromagnetic surfaces that can control electromagnetic waves in unprecedented ways. In this Project we will develop new pioneering research directions to bring this type of technology to the next level. For example, tailored metasurfaces will be developed such that incident waves can be refracted or reflected at a desired deflection angle but with completely tailored far-field patterns (e.g. controlled side-lobe levels and beamwidth). This will be achieved without the need of a power-consuming feeding network as in traditional antenna arrays. These surfaces could be fed from nearby small-scale antenna arrays thus providing an overall powerful antenna platform that is low cost and low profile for emerging 5G mobile and satellite networks. In addition, an entirely new direction will be pursued where these metasurfaces are made out of suitable metallizations to render them optically transparent.