Digital Programmable Metasurface with Element-Independent Visible-Light Sensing

Abstract

The application of jointing multiple physical field sensing with electromagnetic (EM) wave manipulation is a hot research topic recently. Refined perception and unit-level independent regulation of metasurfaces still have certain challenges. In this paper, we propose a digital programmable metasurface that can adaptively achieve various EM functions by sensing the color changes of the incident light, which enables unit-level sensing and modulation. Integrating trichromatic sensors, FPGA, and algorithm onto the metasurface has established a metasurface architecture for electromagnetic scattering field modulation from complex optics to microwave wavelengths, which enables a wide variety of light sensing for modulation. The metasurface integrated with PIN diodes and trichromatic color sensors forms a complete intelligent system of adaptive and reconfigurable coding patterns, within the pre-designed control of FPGA. We fabricated the metasurface using standard printed circuit board (PCB) technology and measured the metasurface in far-fields. The measurement results show good agreement with the simulation results, verifying our design. We envision that the proposed programmable metasurface with visible light sensing will provide a new dimension of manipulation from this perspective.