Metasurfaces have great potential for flexible manipulation of electromagnetic wave polarizations and wavefronts. Here, we propose a general method for achieving independent wavefront manipulation in a single polarization-multiplexing transmissive metasurface. As a proof of concept, we design a transmission-type anisotropic metasurface for independent wavefront manipulation in full-polarization channels. An x-polarized wave transmitted through such a metasurface could be converted into four outgoing beams with delicately designed polarization states that converge to specific positions for holographic imaging. The measured results are in good agreements with simulated ones, verifying the independent wavefront manipulations with arbitrary polarization conversions. Compared with the existing traditional meta-devices with single-polarization modulation, we achieve polarization-multiplexed metasurfaces with mixed polarization and phase control, which can greatly improve the functional richness of the system.

Metasurfaces are ultrathin metamaterials constructed by planar meta-atoms with tailored electromagnetic responses. They have attracted tremendous attention owing to their ability to freely control the propagation of electromagnetic waves. With active elements incorporated into metasurface designs, one can realize tunable and reconfigurable metadevices with functionalities controlled by external stimuli, opening up a new platform to dynamically manipulate electromagnetic waves. In this article, we review the recent progress on tunable and reconfigurable metasurfaces, focusing on their operation principles and practical applications. We describe the approaches to the engineering of reconfigurable metasurfaces categorized into different classes based on the available active materials or elements, which can offer uniform manipulations of electromagnetic waves. We further summarize the recent achievements on programmable metasurfaces with constitutional meta-atoms locally tuned by external stimuli, which can dynamically control the wavefronts of electromagnetic waves. Finally, we discuss time-modulated metasurfaces, which are meaningful to exploit the temporal dimension by applying a dynamic switching of the coding sequence. The review is concluded by our outlook on possible future directions and existing challenges in this fast developing field.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate the operation of an electrically tunable, broadband coherent perfect absorption (CPA) at microwave frequencies by harnessing the CPA features of a graphene–electrolyte–graphene sandwich structure (GSS). Using both a simplified lumped circuit model and full-wave numerical simulation, it is found that the microwave coherent absorptivity of the GSS can be tuned dynamically from nearly 50% to 100% by changing the Fermi level of the graphene. Strikingly, our simplified lumped circuit model agrees very well with the full-wave numerical model, offering valuable insight into the CPA operation of the device. The angle dependency of coherent absorption in the GSS is further investigated, making suggestions for achieving CPA at wide angles up to 80°. To show the validity and accuracy of our theory and numerical simulations, a GSS prototype is fabricated and measured in a C-band waveguide system. The reasonably good agreement between the experimental and the simulated results confirms that the tunable coherent absorption in GSS can be electrically controlled by changing the Fermi level of the graphene.

We report a method to tune the second harmonic generation (SHG) frequency of a metallic octamer by employing cylindrical vector beams as the excitation. Our method exploits the ability to spatially match the polarization state of excitations with the fundamental target plasmonic modes, enabling flexible control of the SHG resonant frequency. It is found that SHG of the octamer is enhanced over a broad band (400 nm) by changing the excitation from the linearly polarized Gaussian beam to radially and azimuthally polarized beams. More strikingly, when subjected to an azimuthally polarized beam, the SHG intensity of the octamer becomes 30 times stronger than that for the linearly polarized beam even in the presence of Fano resonance.