Movable Typography Inspired Tunable Meta-Cylinder for Multi-Directional Microwave Beam Shaping

In this paper, a multi-directional microwave beam shaping function through a tunable meta-cylinder inspired by the movable typography technology is demonstrated. The meta-cylinder is constructed with stacked identical octagonal layers. On each side wall of the octagonal layer, a 1D metasurface row is patterned. The metasurface rows on different side walls are designed to reflect microwave at different phase delays. As a result, each facet of the meta-cylinder can be arranged into different metasurface row combinations and reflect a microwave into different beam shapes when rotating the stacked octagonal layers to different states. In addition, the rotation causes the same phase delay distribution change in all meta-cylinder facets at the same time, therefore the meta-cylinder can manipulate the microwave from different directions in the same way simultaneously. Based on this approach, a multi-directional beam focusing function with tunable focal length is experimentally demonstrated. The dynamical beaming shaping of the microwave in multi-direction will have high application potential in wireless communication and microwave signal transmission and omnidirectional antennas. A tunable meta-cylinder for multi-directional microwave beam shaping function is demonstrated inspired by the movable typography technology. The meta-cylinder consists of stacked octagonal layers, on the side walls of which are patterned 1D metasurfaces. The rotation of the stacked layers results in a synchronized tailoring of the microwave, and a tunable multi-directional beam focusing function is experimentally demonstrated for a principle of demonstration. image