Switchable Wideband phase Gradient Beam Steering Reflector/Absorber for Applications such as Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces

Abstract

A miniaturized dual functional phase gradient meta-structure for beam steering and simultaneous RCS reduction is proposed in this work. A unit cell is designed, which generates a complete phase profile from -90° to 90° to direct the incident beam in all directions. The novelty in the proposed work is that the realized unit cell can reflect incident EM waves with 99.9% efficiency over a wide range of frequencies from 1 Hz to 40 GHz. Also, when the unit cell is loaded with lumped elements like a resistor and capacitor, it acts as an absorber. The magnitude of absorption is controlled by resistor, which can be varied from 79.17% to 99.97%, whereas the frequency at which absorption occurs can be tuned by varying capacitance. This unit cell configuration could achieve beam steering at sub 6 GHz, K and Ka-band frequencies. The dimensions of the proposed meta-atom is 8.4x8.4x1.56 mm3 and formulated on Rogers RT duroid 5880. © 2023 IEEE.