Research on the element structure and surface current distribution of metasurface based on characteristic mode analysis

Abstract

Scientific research has shown that the geometric structure of the metasurface has a significant impact on its ability to control the propagation of electromagnetic waves. The control of surface current can be achieved by designing the shape of the metasurface unit cell. In this paper, the traditional metasurface is studied using characteristic mode analysis, and a modified metasurface is proposed, which consists of 4 × 4 hexagonal rings with an asymmetric concave interior. The modified metasurface controls the distribution of surface current by increasing the path of surface current, thus lowering the frequency of modal significance. In addition, due to the special asymmetric concave interior, the frequency difference of different modal currents increases, leading to the expansion of the operating bandwidth of modal currents. A metasurface antenna is fabricated and measured for proof of concept. With a size of 0.69λL × 0.69λL × 0.06λL (λL is the wavelength in free space at the lowest operating frequency), the designed antenna achieves a −10 dB impedance band of 40%, 3 dB axial ratio band of 19.4%, and boresight gain of 8 dBi.