The conversion from spatial propagating waves to surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) has been well studied, and shown to be very efficient by using gradient‐index metasurfaces. However, feeding energies into and extracting signals from functional plasmonic devices or circuits through transmission lines require the efficient conversion between SPPs and guided waves, which has not been reported, to the best of our knowledge. In this paper, a smooth bridge between the conventional coplanar waveguide (CPW) with 50 Ω impedance and plasmonic waveguide (e.g., an ultrathin corrugated metallic strip) has been proposed in the microwave frequency, which converts the guided waves to spoof SPPs with high efficiency in broadband. A matching transition has been proposed and designed, which is constructed by gradient corrugations and flaring ground, to match both the momentum and impedance of CPW and the plasmonic waveguide. Simulated and measured results on the transmission coefficients and near‐filed distributions show excellent transmission efficiency from CPW to a plasmonic waveguide to CPW in a wide frequency band. The high‐efficiency and broadband conversion between SPPs and guided waves opens up a new avenue for advanced conventional plasmonic integrated functional devices and circuits.

This paper presents a wide-angle polarization independent triple-band absorber based on a metamaterial structure for microwave frequency applications. The designed absorber structure is the combination of two resonators (resonator-I and resonator-II). The proposed absorber is ultra-thin in thickness (0.012λ o at lowest resonance frequency and 0.027λ o at highest resonance frequency). The proposed absorber structure offers three absorption bands with peak absorptivities of 99.95%, 95.32% and 99.47% at 4.48, 5.34 and 10.43 GHz, respectively. Additionally, it also offers the full width at half maximum (FWHM) bandwidth of 167.2 MHz (4.40-4.56 GHz), 178.1 MHz (5.25-5.43 GHz) and 393.8 MHz (10.24-10.63 GHz), respectively. The metamaterial property of the designed absorber structure has been discussed by using dispersion diagram plot. The designed absorber structure exhibits wide-angle absorption at various oblique incidence angle for both TM and TE polarizations. The absorption mechanism of the designed absorber structure has been analyzed through electric field and surface current distribution plots. The input impedance of the designed absorber (375.67 Ω at 4.48 GHz and 346.73 Ω at 10.43 GHz) nearly matches the free space impedance. The proposed absorber structure is fabricated and measured. Simulated and measured results are in good agreement with each other.

Metamaterials based on effective media can be used to produce a number of unusual physical properties (for example, negative refraction and invisibility cloaking) because they can be tailored with effective medium parameters that do not occur in nature. Recently, the use of coding metamaterials has been suggested for the control of electromagnetic waves through the design of coding sequences using digital elements ‘0’ and ‘1,' which possess opposite phase responses. Here we propose the concept of an anisotropic coding metamaterial in which the coding behaviors in different directions are dependent on the polarization status of the electromagnetic waves. We experimentally demonstrate an ultrathin and flexible polarization-controlled anisotropic coding metasurface that functions in the terahertz regime using specially designed coding elements. By encoding the elements with elaborately designed coding sequences (both 1-bit and 2-bit sequences), the x- and y-polarized waves can be anomalously reflected or independently diffused in three dimensions. The simulated far-field scattering patterns and near-field distributions are presented to illustrate the dual-functional performance of the encoded metasurface, and the results are consistent with the measured results. We further demonstrate the ability of the anisotropic coding metasurfaces to generate a beam splitter and realize simultaneous anomalous reflections and polarization conversions, thus providing powerful control of differently polarized electromagnetic waves. The proposed method enables versatile beam behaviors under orthogonal polarizations using a single metasurface and has the potential for use in the development of interesting terahertz devices.

Traditionally, a black hole is a region of space with huge gravitational field, which absorbs everything hitting it. In history, the black hole was first discussed by Laplace under the Newton mechanics, whose event horizon radius is the same as the Schwarzschild's solution of the Einstein's vacuum field equations. If all those objects having such an event horizon radius but different gravitational fields are called as black holes, then one can simulate certain properties of the black holes using electromagnetic fields and metamaterials due to the similar propagation behaviours of electromagnetic waves in curved space and in inhomogeneous metamaterials. In a recent theoretical work by Narimanov and Kildishev, an optical black hole has been proposed based on metamaterials, in which the theoretical analysis and numerical simulations showed that all electromagnetic waves hitting it are trapped and absorbed. Here we report the first experimental demonstration of such an electromagnetic black hole in the microwave frequencies. The proposed black hole is composed of non-resonant and resonant metamaterial structures, which can trap and absorb electromagnetic waves coming from all directions spirally inwards without any reflections due to the local control of electromagnetic fields and the event horizon corresponding to the device boundary. It is shown that the absorption rate can reach 99% in the microwave frequencies. We expect that the electromagnetic black hole could be used as the thermal emitting source and to harvest the solar light. * tjcui@seu.edu.cnThe concept of black hole was first introduced by Laplace under the Newton mechanics but has been widely used in the general relativity, in which a Schwarzschild black hole possesses an event horizon radius [1]. Everything hitting it including the light cannot escape from the region because the gravity potential is very powerful, and incident lights which are tangential to this circular horizon from outside would form a circle. Similarly, any object whose possible potential is so powerful that it forms an event horizon could be called as a black hole, just like a recent theoretical work reported in Ref. [3]. Actually, the absorption properties of such a black hole are similar to those of so called black body in thermodynamics [4]. All these black holes have a one-way surface, which absorbs all lights/particles into the horizon surface without any reflections, and hence nothing comes out from the black holes.There are two ways to mimic the phenomena of black holes based on electromagnetic waves and metamaterials [2]. For the black hole in general relativity, the presence of matter-energy densities results in the motion of matter propagating in a curved spacetime [1]. Such a behaviour is very similar to the light or electromagnetic-wave propagation in a curved space or in an inhomogeneous metamaterial. Hence one could use the electromagnetic waves and metamaterials to mimic the celestial mechanics by comparing the refractive index to the metric of gravity [5]. Another w...

We present the design, analysis and measurements of a polarizationinsensitive tunable metamaterial absorber with varactor diodes embedded between metamaterial units. The basic unit shows excellent absorptivity in the designed frequency band over a wide range of incident angles. By regulating the reverse bias voltage on the varactor diode, the absorption frequency of the designed unit can be controlled continuously. The absorption mechanism is interpreted using the electromagnetic-wave interference theory. When the metamaterial units are placed along two orthogonal directions, the absorber is insensitive to the polarization of incident waves. The tunability of the absorber has been verified by experimental results with the measured bandwidth of 1.5 GHz (or relative bandwidth of 30%).