In this paper, wideband and high efficiency millimeter-wave circular Airy orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams, which have desired multiplexing OAM modes, directions and beam numbers, are generated by the proposed three metal layer transmission metasurfaces (TMSs) with size 12λ0×12λ0 based on the Airy-OAM phase superposition method. The measured results indicate non-diffracting propagation distance 31λ0, autofocusing property, high aperture efficiency 13.1%, and wideband 16.8% (28 GHz-33 GHz). The design method can be used for circular Airy OAM beam generation in point-to-point, point-to-multipoint wireless power transmission (WPT), and OAM mode multiplexing communication systems.
We introduce the concept of gap Zak or Chern topological invariants for photonic crystals of various dimensionalities. Specifically, we consider a case where Tamm states are formed at an interface of two semi-infinite Bragg mirrors and derive the formulism for gap Zak phases of two constituent Bragg mirrors. We demonstrate that gap topological numbers are instrumental in studies of interface states both in conventional and photonic crystals.
A physics-based hybrid implicit-explicit finite-difference time domain (HIE-FDTD) method is developed for electromagnetic modeling of multi-passband frequency selective surfaces (FSSs). Using this self-developed HIE-FDTD simulator, several dual- and tri-passband FSSs are designed and further fabricated. The measurement results are in good agreement with the simulation ones, which prove high accuracy of the self-developed HIE-FDTD algorithm. In addition, the resonant frequencies of the designed FSSs can be effectively adjusted by changing their geometric parameters. This work provides electromagnetic guides of structure and parameter selections for designing multi-passband FSS.
Metamaterials offer great promise for engineering electromagnetic properties beyond the limits of natural materials. A typical example is the so-called spoof surface plasmons (SPs), which mimic features of optical SPs without penetrating metal at lower frequencies. Spoof SPs inherit most of the properties of natural SPs, including dispersion characteristics, field confinement, localized resonance, and subwavelength resolution, and therefore are highly expected to offer a new solution for low-frequency applications. With the development of spoof SPs, three different theories have been introduced. The first one is the description of subwavelength corrugated metal surfaces by a metamaterial that hosts an effective plasma frequency. The second one is developed with high-index contrast grating, which can realize propagation with ultra low loss and localization with ultrahigh Q-factor resonance. The last one is structural dispersion induced SPs, a perfect low-frequency analogue of optical SPs, realized by exploiting the well-known structural dispersion waveguide modes only with positive-ɛ materials. Here, the developments of these three theories including propagation and localized SPs are reviewed, focusing primarily on the fundamental and representative applications.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have received increasing attentions recently. They are important for air quality monitoring, and biomarkers for diseases diagnosis. For the gas sensor community, various detection technologies were explored not only to detect total VOCs, but also aim for sensor selectivity. Commercially available VOC sensors, such as metal oxide based or photoionization detectors, are suitable for total VOCs but lack of selectivity. With the advancement of optical spectroscopy, it provides a good solution for specific VOC detections. In this review, various spectroscopy techniques are summarised focusing on increasing sensor sensitivity and selectivity. The techniques included in the paper are, non-dispersive infrared, multi-pass cell spectroscopy, cavity enhanced absorption photoacoustic spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Each technique has its pros and cons, which are also discussed.
We introduce a theory of optical responses of bianisotropic layers with arbitrary effective medium parameters, which results in generalized Fresnel-Airy equations for reflection and transmission coefficients at all incidence directions and polarizations. The poles of these equations provide explicit expressions for the dispersion of Fabry-Perot resonances and surface electromatic waves in bianisotropic layers and interfaces. The existence conditions of these resonances are topologically related to the zeros of the high-k characteristic function h(k)=0 of bulk bianisotropic materials and taxonomy of bianisotropic media according to the hyperbolic topological classes [32, 33].
Since the first working multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA) for electromagnetic simulations was proposed by Chew's group in 1995, this algorithm has been recognized as one of the most powerful tools for numerical solutions of extremely large electromagnetic problems with complex geometries. It has been parallelized with different strategies to explore the computing power of supercomputers, increasing the size of solvable problems from millions to tens of billions of unknowns, thereby addressing the crucial demand arising from practical applications in a sense. This paper provides a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art parallel approaches of the MLFMA, especially on a newly proposed ternary parallelization scheme and its acceleration on graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters. We discuss and numerically study the advantages of the ternary parallelization scheme and demonstrate its flexibility and efficiency.
A portable 4D snapshot hyperspectral imager (P4DS imager) with compact size, fast imaging time, low cost, and simple design is proposed and demonstrated. The key components of the system are a projector, a liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF), and a camera. It has two operating modes dependent on the set state of the LCTF: a 3D light measurement mode that produces a 3D point cloud reconstruction of the object, and a hyperspectral imaging mode yielding spectral data. The camera imaging plane is the same for both operating modes allowing the collected spatial and spectral data to be directly fused into a 4D data set without post-processing. The P4DS imager has excellent performance with a spectral resolution of 10 nm, a spatial depth accuracy of 55.7 um, and total 4D imaging time of 0.8 s. 4D imaging experiments of three different samples, colored doll statue, green broccoli, and a human face, are presented to demonstrate the efficiency and applicability of the system. Due to being cost-effective, portable, and good imaging performance, the proposed system is suitable for commercialization and mass production.
As a potential alternative to conventional lenses, metalenses have the advantage of ultrathin volume and light weight. Such miniaturization is expected to apply to compact, nanoscale optical devices such as micro-cameras and high-resolution display. However, chromatic aberration is an important problem in the application of metalenses, which will damage the imaging resolution and color reality for multi-wavelength incident light. Here, we briefly discuss recent development of design methods for achromatic metalenses, containing one or more pieces, and experimental evaluation of their performances.
Reflection reduction metasurface is capable of suppressing the radar cross section of a target, which is of great importance in stealth technology. However, it is still a challenge to realize broadband and low-profile simultaneously within a simple design. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an ultra-thin wideband reflection reduction metasurface, which is achieved by utilizing polarization conversion instead of resonant absorption. The simple cut-wire unit cell is adopted to perform efficient cross polarization conversion, which leads to a polarization conversion ratio above 90% ranging from 8.4 to 14.7 GHz. By arranging the 0/1 units in chessboard layout, the reflection reduction reaches 10\,dB from 8.1 GHz to 14.6 GHz. Measured results agree well with simulated ones, which validates the effectiveness of the proposed structure. The ratio of thickness to maximum wavelength reaches 0.56 while the relative bandwidth reaches 57.3%, demonstrating an excellent comprehensive performance. Since our structure consists of refractory ceramic materials, it is promising for radar cross section reduction in high temperature environment.