Wide-angle and high-efficiency flat retroreflector

Abstract

We propose a flat retroreflector that can efficiently reflect the electromagnetic waves back along its incident direction in a wide continuous range of angles. This retroreflector consists of a quadratic metalens and a flat metallic reflector at the focal plane of the former. The quadratic metalens is a dielectric pillar array encoded with a quadratic phase profile and it is embedded in the top side of the substrate. The flat reflector is on the bottom side of the substrate. The designed retroreflector has a diameter of 40 mm, a thickness of 15 mm, and a working frequency of 77 GHz. Through meta-units optimization, a retroreflection efficiency of 38.51% at ± 60° incidence and an average retroreflection efficiency of 46.39% for the incident angles from 0° to 60° can be numerically demonstrated. This flat retroreflector is easy for integration, which is promising for potential applications in the miniature wireless communication systems.