Metasurface‐Empowered Low‐Profile Folded Programmable Platform for High‐Performance Electromagnetic Syntheses

Abstract A low‐profile and high‐performance folded programmable platform (FPP) is presented for far‐ and near‐field electromagnetic (EM) syntheses in real time. The FPP consists of 468 digital polarization‐twisting phase shifter (DPTPS) elements, an integrable planar feed, a polarized grating, and a driver circuit module. The DPTPS elements exhibit a strict 180° phase difference across the entire frequency band, with the amplitude staying above 0.8 across a bandwidth of 1.2 GHz, thereby ensuring a robust 1‐bit phase coding capability. A meticulously designed feed is integrated at the center of the primary reflective layer. Leveraging a precisely engineered positive‐ and negative‐voltage driver module with monolithic integration potential, the proposed FPP enables electrically addressable reconfiguration of each DPTPS. An FPP prototype is fabricated and tested, demonstrating excellent agreement between experimental and simulation results. Far‐field tests show that high‐directivity pencil beam generated by FPP can be scanned in a 140° 3D field of view. Near‐field experimental results verify the FPP's ability to achieve high‐quality multidimensional holographic projection. The proposed FPP features a much lower profile (only 50%) than that of the conventional reflective and transmissive arrays, while eliminating feed‐blockage effects, thereby paving a way for complex application scenarios, such as satellite communications and displays.