Anisotropic glide-symmetric substrate-integrated-holey metasurface for a compressed ultrawideband Luneburg lens

Using the freedom of design that metamaterials provide, we show how electromagnetic fields can be redirected at will and propose a design strategy. The conserved fields-electric displacement field D, magnetic induction field B, and Poynting vector B-are all displaced in a consistent manner. A simple illustration is given of the cloaking of a proscribed volume of space to exclude completely all electromagnetic fields. Our work has relevance to exotic lens design and to the cloaking of objects from electromagnetic fields.

An invisibility device should guide light around an object as if nothing were there, regardless of where the light comes from. Ideal invisibility devices are impossible, owing to the wave nature of light. This study develops a general recipe for the design of media that create perfect invisibility within the accuracy of geometrical optics. The imperfections of invisibility can be made arbitrarily small to hide objects that are much larger than the wavelength. With the use of modern metamaterials, practical demonstrations of such devices may be possible. The method developed here can also be applied to escape detection by other electromagnetic waves or sound.

For centuries, the conventional approach to lens design has been to grind the surfaces of a uniform material in such a manner as to sculpt the paths that rays of light follow as they transit through the interfaces. Refractive lenses formed by this procedure of bending the surfaces can be of extremely high quality, but are nevertheless limited by geometrical and wave aberrations that are inherent to the manner in which light refracts at the interface between two materials. Conceptually, a more natural--but usually less convenient--approach to lens design would be to vary the refractive index throughout an entire volume of space. In this manner, far greater control can be achieved over the ray trajectories. Here, we demonstrate how powerful emerging techniques in the field of transformation optics can be used to harness the flexibility of gradient index materials for imaging applications. In particular we design and experimentally demonstrate a lens that is broadband (more than a full decade bandwidth), has a field-of-view approaching 180 degrees and zero f-number. Measurements on a metamaterial implementation of the lens illustrate the practicality of transformation optics to achieve a new class of optical devices.