Movable Typography Inspired Tunable Meta‐Cylinder for Multi‐Directional Microwave Beam Shaping

Abstract In this paper, a multi‐directional microwave beam shaping function through a tunable meta‐cylinder inspired by the movable typography technology is demonstrated. The meta‐cylinder is constructed with stacked identical octagonal layers. On each side wall of the octagonal layer, a 1D metasurface row is patterned. The metasurface rows on different side walls are designed to reflect microwave at different phase delays. As a result, each facet of the meta‐cylinder can be arranged into different metasurface row combinations and reflect a microwave into different beam shapes when rotating the stacked octagonal layers to different states. In addition, the rotation causes the same phase delay distribution change in all meta‐cylinder facets at the same time, therefore the meta‐cylinder can manipulate the microwave from different directions in the same way simultaneously. Based on this approach, a multi‐directional beam focusing function with tunable focal length is experimentally demonstrated. The dynamical beaming shaping of the microwave in multi‐direction will have high application potential in wireless communication and microwave signal transmission and omnidirectional antennas.