Antenna and Array Technologies for Future Wireless Ecosystems

1Surface‐Wave Based Metasurface Antennas

Enrica Martini¹, Marco Faenzi¹, David González‐Ovejero², and Stefano Maci¹

¹Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics, University of Sienna, Sienna, Italy

²University of Rennes, CNRS, Institut d'Électronique et de Télécommunications de Rennes (IETR), UMR 6164, 35000 Rennes, France

1.1 Introduction

Metasurfaces (MTSs) are thin metamaterials composed of a dielectric layer loaded with subwavelength inclusions, whose geometrical features are properly varied in space for controlling the macroscopic electromagnetic properties [1]. Several kinds of devices have been recently developed for the control of the reflection or transmission of space waves [2–6] or the dispersion of surface waves (SWs) [7–13]. The inclusions in the microwave range are represented by printed metallic elements deposited on a regular Cartesian or hexagonal lattice [14–25] that constitute a film on top of the dielectric layer (the same technology as a printed circuit board [PCB]). The elements in the terahertz (THz) range can be formed by protruding metallic pins on a ground plane [26–28].

In this chapter, we treat a special class of modulated MTS antennas based on an interaction between a cylindrical SW launched from a vertical monopole, typically in the center of a circular aperture, and a modulated MTS. The SW generated by the monopole is perturbed by the modulated boundary conditions (BCs) imposed by the MTS, and it is transformed into a general curvilinear ...