Metasurfaces consisting of electrically thin and densely packed planar arrays of subwavelength elements enable an unprecedented control of the impinging electromagnetic fields. Spatially modulated metasurfaces can efficiently tailor the spatial distribution of these fields with great flexibility. Similarly, time modulated metasurfaces can be successfully used to manipulate the frequency content and time variations of the impinging field. In this paper, we present time-modulated reflective metasurfaces that cause a frequency shift to the impinging radiation, thus realizing an artificial Doppler effect in a non-moving electrically thin structure. Starting from the theoretical analysis, we analytically derive the required time modulation of the surface admittance to achieve this effect, and present a realistic timevarying structure, based on a properly designed and dynamically tuned high-impedance surface. It is analytically and numerically demonstrated that the field emerging from the metasurface is up-/down-converted in frequency according to the modulation profile of the metasurface. The proposed metasurface concept, enabling a frequency modulation of the electromagnetic field "on-the-fly", may find application in telecommunication, radar, and sensing scenarios.

No abstract

Although cloaks are effective at suppressing the observability of static objects, they can be defeated when in motion. Here we discuss a general technique to cloak the motion of objects from static observers, based on compensating the Doppler shift associated with their motion with frequency conversion sustained by a spatiotemporally modulated cover. The concept is theoretically and numerically demonstrated in a system composed of a planar reflector covered by a spatiotemporally modulated slab. It is shown that, for properly selected modulation frequency, the composite system can appear to an external observer as stationary, even though it is actually moving. This concept may pave the way to the minimization of clutter produced by moving objects as well as to new directions in the science of cloaking

We show that properly designed mantle cloaks, consisting of patterned metallic sheets placed around cylindrical monopoles, allow tightly packing the same antennas together in a highly dense telecommunication platform. Our experimental demonstration is applied to the relevant example of two cylindrical monopole radiators operating for 3G and 4G mobile communications. The two antennas are placed in close proximity, separated by 1/10 of the shorter operational wavelength, and, after cloaking, are shown to remarkably operate as if isolated in free-space. This result paves the way to unprecedented co-siting strategies for multiple antennas handling different services and installed in overcrowded platforms, such as communication towers, satellite payloads, aircrafts, or ship trees. More broadly, this work presents a significant application of cloaking technology to improve the efficiency of modern communication systems

In this letter, we present the design and the experimental realization of an innovative self-filtering low-noise horn antenna. The proposed radiator consists of the following: a regular WR-62 waveguide connected to a horn antenna, a metallic screen with a vertical slit placed at the section connecting the waveguide and the horn, and a dielectric slab, with metallic omega shapes printed on both faces, placed across the slit. The goal of this design is to reduce the bandwidth of operation of the regular WR-62 horn in order to self-filter the noise captured within the antenna operation band. In the receiving mode, the metallic omega shapes placed across the slit allow transmission only in a narrow frequency band centered around the resonant frequency of the omegas. In such a frequency band, the radiating performances of the proposed antenna are comparable to the ones of a regular WR-62 horn radiator. A proper set of numerical simulations and measurements confirm the effectiveness of the proposed design, which can be successfully used in receiving satellite communication systems

In this letter, we propose a magnet-less nonreciprocal isolating system based on time-varying metasurfaces. Two parallel time-varying metasurfaces, one for frequency upconversion and one for down-conversion by the same amount, are used for realizing a region of space where incident waves from opposite directions experience an opposite Doppler frequency shift. As a result, any device within this region becomes sensitive to the illumination direction, exhibiting a different scattering response from opposite directions and thus breaking reciprocity. Very importantly, thanks to the opposite frequency shift of the metasurfaces, the frequency of the transmitted electromagnetic field is the same as for the incident one. Here, we demonstrate this general approach by using a Bragg grating as the device between the time-varying metasurfaces. The combined structure of the metasurfaces and the grating exhibits different transmission and reflection properties for opposite illumination direction, thereby realizing an isolator. More broadly, this letter presents a strategy for converting any conventional electromagnetic device to a nonreciprocal one by placing it between two time-varying metasurfaces. This approach opens the door to several new nonreciprocal components based on thin and lightweight metasurfaces, which are simpler to realize compared to their volumetric counterparts.

Temporal metamaterials are artificial materials whose electromagnetic properties change over time. In analogy with spatial media and metamaterials, where their properties change smoothly or abruptly over space, temporal metamaterials can exhibit a smooth variation over time, realizing a temporal non-homogeneous medium, or a stepwise transition, and the temporal version of dielectric slabs or multilayer structures. In this Letter, we focus our attention on temporal multilayer structures, and we propose the synthesis of higher-order transfer functions by modeling the wave propagation through a generalized temporal multilayer structure, consisting of a cascade over time of different media. The tailoring of the scattering response of the temporal structure as a function of frequency is presented, deriving the corresponding scattering coefficients for a properly designed set of medium properties, i.e., permittivity and permeability, and application time, in analogy with what is typically done in optical and electromagnetic spatial multilayered structures. This allows us to design novel electromagnetic and optical devices with higher-order transfer functions by exploiting the temporal dimension instead of the spatial one.

In this Letter, we present the design of a horn nanoantenna working at near-IR frequencies. The proposed layout consists of an Ag-air-Ag nanotransmission line terminated in a tapered horn. The antenna design is validated through proper full-wave numerical simulations, taking into account actual dispersion and losses of the involved materials. The numerical results show that the designed nanohorn is matched over a broad range of frequencies (more than 50% of fractional bandwidth) and radiates efficiently in the same frequency band (the realized gain is greater than 10  dBi). Such promising results may find application in different technical and scientific fields, ranging from smart lighting to optical wireless communications.