| Abstrakt: |
This study presents a novel implementation of vanadium dioxide (VO2) phase change material in an electromagnetic (EM) surface with beam steering capabilities. For the first time, we present the design, fabrication, and measurement of a globally actuated, VO2-based beamforming reflective EM surface. We propose a design featuring complementary unit cells that enable beam steering with a single excitation, marking a pioneering use of low-loss VO2 in creating a complementary EM surface for the mmWave band. The unit cells incorporating VO2 exhibit low-loss characteristics, with −0.92 and −1.9 dB in the hot state and −0.49 and −0.25 dB in the cold state, respectively. We incorporate both positive and negative phase variants alongside two temperature-independent phase unit cells. The complementary design enables us to utilize two beam operating states, effectively exploiting the otherwise unused cold state. We experimentally demonstrated beamforming at ±5° and ±10° from the broadside. In the case of ±10°, the measured gains at 35 GHz in the cold and hot states were 19.4 and 20.3 dB, respectively, which aligned well with the simulated gains of 20.9 and 21.5 dB. Manipulation of the electromagnetic wave direction with a single excitation has the potential for imaging, sensing, and communication applications. The complementary unit cell design methodology can be further adapted for mmWave beamforming, absorbing, and cloaking reconfigurable EM surfaces. Furthermore, the use of VO2 can be extended up to sub-THz frequencies due to the wideband, low-loss characteristics compared with conventional reconfigurable devices, such as PIN diodes or MEMS switches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
