Reconfigurable Metasurfaces for Frequency Selective Absorption

Abstract

Metasurfaces can provide novel functionality for absorbing electromagnetic waves through a periodic array of inductive/capacitive resonators by controlling the material's permittivity and permeability. This attractive characteristic makes them widely applicable to various electromagnetic applications. However, conventional metasurfaces are dispersive and suffer from a narrow bandwidth with uncontrollable and unchangeable functions because the effective permittivity and permeability are tailored to a certain resonance frequency. Therefore, many studies have focused on how to increase the absorption frequency bandwidth and control the absorption frequency by using reconfigurable metasurfaces. This paper presents a report on the most recent progress in the realization of reconfigurable metasurfaces based on advanced materials for frequency-selective absorption in the microwave, millimeter-wave, sub-terahertz, terahertz, and visible ranges. Furthermore, their tuning ratios for different advanced materials and spectra are summarized and compared. This progress report provides guidelines for the material selection for and the design of reconfigurable metasurfaces.