Controlling Diffraction Patterns with Metagratings

Abstract

Although various wavefront-manipulation capabilities have been demonstrated with metasurfaces, both fundamental and practical difficulties remain. This study elaborates on a synergistic approach that combines metamaterials and gratings to achieve complete control of diffraction patterns. Unlike in a metasurface, in a metagrating the number of scatterers is significantly reduced, relaxing fabrication tolerance. Strong control of diffraction with simple excitation, ultrawide bandwidth, and significantly fewer scatterers is particularly interesting at optical and infrared frequencies, for $e.g.$ efficient, reconfigurable antennas in microwave communication systems.