Metasurfaces: Engineering Electromagnetic Wavefronts

Metamaterials was once synonymous with ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘future technology’. In the first decade of the 21st century, metamaterials were sought to solve a large number of problems in microwaves and optics, and rapidly advance industrial, scientific, medical, and military technologies. Yet very few of the initial expectations have come to fruition. This lack of concrete applications led some critics to label metamaterials as an “unearned irony of the improperly educated postmodern crowd”. This talk sheds some light on the origin behind the initial enthusiasm and the followed disappointment in metamaterial research. The successor of bulk metamaterials, namely metasurfaces, is introduced and the underlying electromagnetic-metasurface interactions are analyzed. A detailed insight is given into metasurface engineering and several realizable applications. An overview of metasurface engineering future roadmap is laid out with pointers to some of the available exciting research and development opportunities.

Speaker: Dr. Mohamed Salem, Engineering Science Department, Sonoma State University