Metasurfaces, two-dimensional equivalents of metamaterials, are engineered surfaces consisting of deep subwavelength features that have full control of the electromagnetic waves. Metasurfaces are not only being applied to the current devices throughout the electromagnetic spectrum from microwave to optics but also inspiring many new thrilling applications such as programmable on-demand optics and photonics in future. In order to overcome the limits imposed by passive metasurfaces, extensive researches have been put on utilizing different materials and mechanisms to design active metasurfaces. In this paper, we review the recent progress in tunable and reconfigurable metasurfaces and metadevices through the different active materials deployed together with the different control mechanisms including electrical, thermal, optical, mechanical, and magnetic, and provide the perspective for their future development for applications.

The lossy nature of indium tin oxide (ITO) at epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) wavelength is used to design an electrically tunable metasurface absorber. The metasurface unit cell is constructed of a circular resonator comprising two ITO discs and a high dielectric constant perovskite barium strontium titanate (BST) film. The ENZ wavelength in the accumulation and depletion layers of ITO discs is controlled by applying a single bias voltage. The coupling of magnetic dipole resonance with the ENZ wavelength inside the accumulation layer of ITO film causes total absorption of reflected light. The reflection amplitude can achieve ~84 dB or ~99.99% modulation depth in the operation wavelength of 820 nm at a bias voltage of −2.5 V. Moreover, the metasurface is insensitive to the polarization of the incident light due to the circular design of resonators and the symmetrical design of bias connections.

The development of high‐efficiency compact non‐mechanical beam tuning devices has attracted a lot of attention for light detection and ranging, augmented reality display, and chip‐to‐chip communication. Owing to the fast wavefront manipulation in an ultra‐thin dimension, metasurfaces have been regarded as potential substitutes for traditional tunable optical components toward further miniaturization and low power consumption. However, most beam tuning metasurfaces currently are polarization‐sensitive and designed to work in reflection mode, which limit their applications in integrated optical systems for full‐range steering. In this paper, a transmission mode polarization‐insensitive beam switching metasurface based on nonvolatile phase‐change material Ge2Sb2Te5 is proposed and experimentally demonstrated at the telecommunication wavelength. The high transmission efficiency with a large switching angle of up to 75° is achievable for potentially full‐range beam steering applications. As a proof of concept, the transmitted beam with a switching angle of 15° and directivity of 82.4% is demonstrated. In addition, by controlling the phase transition in the intermediate states, the metasurface can be used as a tunable beam splitter to control the ratio of the beam power between two predesigned transmission angles. The demonstrated phase‐change metasurfaces pave the way for achieving high‐efficiency dynamic beam steering for various important applications.