Analysis and Synthesis of Cascaded Cylindrical Metasurfaces Using a Wave Matrix Approach

Metasurfaces have been extensively investigated due to their ability to tailor the amplitude, phase, and polarization of electromagnetic waves at subwavelength scales. However, most of the research has focused on planar metasurfaces. This has limited their applicability since curved geometries are required in numerous applications. In this article, wave propagation in the radial direction of cascaded, cylindrical structures is studied. The intent is to develop a synthesis method that enables designers to realize arbitrary scattering matrices with cascaded, azimuthally invariant metasurfaces (subwavelength patterned metallic claddings) and dielectric spacers. The proposed method exploits a wave matrix formulation, which relates the incident and scattered fields on one side of a scatterer to those on the other side. It combines the merits of the scattering matrix and ABCD matrix. Design examples are demonstrated using the proposed wave matrix design approach and verified through a commercial electromagnetic solver. The cascaded cylindrical metasurfaces studied in this article are expected to find use in various applications involving antenna beam steering, polarization manipulation, and hologram generation.