Ultrafast reprogrammable multifunctional vanadium-dioxide-assisted metasurface for dynamic THz wavefront engineering

Abstract: In this paper, for the first time, a new generation of ultrafast reprogrammable multi-mission bias encoded metasurface is proposed for dynamic THz wavefront engineering by employing VO2 reversible and fast monoclinic to tetragonal phase transition. The multi-functionality of our designed VO2 based coding metasurface (VBCM) was guaranteed by elaborately designed meta-atom comprising three-patterned VO2 thin films whose operational statuses can be dynamically tuned among four states of "00"- "11" by merely changing the biasing voltage controlled by an external FPGA platform. Capitalizing on such meta-atom design and by driving VBCM with different spiral-like and spiral-parabola-like coding sequences, single vortex beam and focused vortex beam with interchangeable OAM modes were satisfactorily generated respectively. Additionally, by adopting superposition theorem and convolution operation, symmetric/asymmetric multiple beams and arbitrarily-oriented multiple vortex beams in pre-demined directions with different topological charges are realized. The versatility of our designed VBCM also has equipped a platform to focus the incident THz wavefront into a pre-determined point which can be dynamically altered. Several illustrative examples successfully have clarified that proposed VBCM is a promising candidate for solving crucial THz challenges such as high data rate wireless communication where ultrafast switching between several missions is required.