Perfect Electromagnetic Teleporting Metasurface Wormholes

Metasurfaces have found ubiquitous use in electromagnetics engineering and wireless communication research today. Metasurfaces are 2D arrangements of ‘meta-atoms’, which operate much under the same principles as ordinary light-matter interaction under long-wavelength illumination. For example, when optical light with a wavelength on the order of hundreds of nanometers interacts with the atoms comprising the surface of a table, since the impinging wavelength is thousands of times longer than the breadth of an atom, only the average response of the collection of atoms is perceived (we see the table, not the atoms).

By designing materials comprising of designer ‘meta-atoms’ which are at least ten times smaller than the impinging wavelength, the light-matter interaction can be engineered leading to novel wavefront control and electromagnetic phenomena. Most of these metasurfaces, however, are planar. Coevolving with developing 5G/6G communications standards, metasurfaces used for channel optimization will need to also be conformal.

In dense urban environments where diffraction strengths of new high-frequency communication frequencies are reduced, conformal metasurfaces which can route electromagnetic energy around corners of building can prove useful. In this work, metasurfaces are designed to create tunnel-like connections through space connecting two space wave ports at distant locations (on opposite sides of a building for example).

These conformal teleporting metasurfaces can be used to transfer electromagnetic waves from one side of a building around its corner to an adjacent side using metasurfaces shaped with a 90-degree bend. Devices like these can enhance 5G/6G communications channels using passive and lossless metasurfaces which require no electrical connections to operate, simply affixed to a building similar to hanging a painting.

This research will impact education and outreach by creating demonstration days at local high schools in the Blacksburg, VA area, and disseminating the results through new courses at Virginia Tech and short courses at conferences, and engaging undergraduates in research.

The principal objectives of this project are to introduce perfect electromagnetic teleporting metasurfaces to the research community, to use the concepts to optimize telecommunications channels in urban environments by routing electromagnetic energy around corners of buildings, and to develop conformal metasurface design approaches which can support the new 5G/6G communications standards where conformal reconfigurable intelligent surfaces have been included (UAV bodies for example). Perfect electromagnetic teleporting metasurfaces create tunnel-like connections through space connecting two space wave ports at distant locations (on opposite sides of a building for example).

The incident plane wave field will be absorbed at port 1, perfectly converted into a surface wave which connects the two ports and transfers/delivers power between them, and reradiated from port 2 located at a distant location. The reradiated field from port 2 will be designed with control over its phase and amplitude utilizing all of the power contained in the incident field in a completely passive and lossless way.

As the metasurface teleports all of the available energy in the incident wave to the reradiated wave, the operation is said to be perfect. To date, perfect conformal teleporting metasurface operation has not been demonstrated. This work will enable the first experimental demonstration of these types of metasurfaces and will undoubtedly open up new streams of research in the area with unprecedented applications springing henceforth.

The designs will be enabled by coupling integral equations with rapid optimization techniques and novel realization approaches based on additive manufacturing and conformal printed circuit design. literature on unit cell design for conformal metasurfaces is very scarce, and one attempting to realize a conformal metasurface using printed circuits may not find a suitable approach when surveying current literature. Hence, this work will also provide approaches to engineers and scientists who need to design and realize conformal metasurfaces.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.