IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO.

9, SEPTEMBER 2023 7387

Unit Cell Design for Aperiodic Metasurfaces

Jordan Budhu , Member, IEEE, Nicholas Ventresca , and Anthony Grbic , Fellow, IEEE

Abstract— A technique is presented for the design of printed designed in a reduced dimensional space. After a design is
unit cells in aperiodic metasurface environments. The method completed in the reduced dimensional space, the proportion-
begins with a solved matrix equation governing electromagnetic ality constants must be translated back to patterned/textured
scattering from a homogenized metasurface design. The matrix
geometries by way of an extraction method, that is, the
equation is used to find the local, inhomogeneous electric field
exciting a printed-circuit unit cell geometry. The local field extraction method assigns proportionality constants to complex
is then impressed onto the printed-circuit geometry and the geometries.
induced surface current is numerically computed. The computed Next-generation antennas designed using metasurfaces
surface current is sampled at the matrix equation discretization. promise extreme wavefront control. Extreme wavefront control
The matrix equation is then used to compute the electric field requires abrupt changes in field over subwavelength distances.
scattered by the printed-circuit unit cell onto its neighbors using Abrupt changes in field break the fundamental assumptions
the sampled current in place of the current of the original
inherent to most commonly used extraction methods. Typi-
homogenized unit cell. The printed-circuit geometry is optimized
to scatter the same field as the homogenized unit cell when excited cally, fields are assumed to vary slowly, thereby allowing local
with the local electric field computed. Two design examples are periodicity approximations to be made. To realize the promise
provided. Both a finite-sized, wide-angle reflecting metasurface, of metamaterials and metasurfaces, new design approaches,
and a metasurface reflectarray designed to scan and collimate an which can account for rapid spatial field variations in design
incident cylindrical wave are realized with printed-circuit unit and surface parameter extraction, must be devised. Otherwise,
cells using the proposed approach. It is shown that the local metasurface technologies will be forever relegated to the
periodicity approximation cannot be used to accurately design
the unit cells of either finite-sized metasurface. reduced dimensional space.
Metasurfaces utilizing printed-circuit elements are typically
Index Terms— Aperiodic, inhomogeneous, metasurface, unit designed in the homogenized/reduced-order domain. Subse-
cell design. quently, the homogenized elements are translated to patterned
I. I NTRODUCTION metallic claddings through a sheet impedance extraction pro-

S UBWAVELENGTH structured composite materials, also

known as metamaterials, promise properties beyond what
is normally found in nature, such as dielectric materials with
cedure. The extractions are traditionally done in a locally
periodic environment [5], [6]. This approach is strictly accu-
rate only for periodic structures, approximate for adiabatic
negative refractive indices, materials exhibiting diamagnetism (slowly varying) structures, and fails completely when the
and paramagnetism at optical frequencies, gigantic optical metasurface is aperiodic with abrupt changes in field. The
activity, exceptionally large nonlinear optical susceptibilities, difficulty stems from the aperiodic environment, which inho-
or nonreciprocal behavior [1]. Since losses accrue through field mogeneously excites the unit cells of the metasurface [see
propagation in metamaterials, metasurfaces, which can per- Fig. 1(a)]. Fig. 1(a) shows the local electric field exciting a unit
form wavefront transformations over a subwavelength distance cell close to the center of an aperiodic metasurface reflectarray
(effectively a surface), were proposed [2]. Constitutive surface (see Section V). As is evident, the excitation cannot be
parameters, which perform these field transformations called described by a single plane wave. Since the printed-circuit
generalized sheet transition conditions (GSTCs), offer a way geometries used to realize aperiodic metasurfaces are typically
to model homogenized metasurfaces [3], [4]. Homogenization spatially dispersive [see Fig. 1(b)], this inhomogeneous exci-
refers to averaging the response of a unit cell (which in general tation makes sheet impedance extraction challenging. When a
contains a complex geometry) and assigning simple propor- metasurface’s impedance profiles are found through optimiza-
tionality constants (impedances, admittances, and coupling tion, as in [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], and [14], the
coefficients) between induced currents and averaged fields. impedance profile can exhibit abrupt changes (large relative
In this way, the metasurface can be described, analyzed, and impedance jumps between neighboring unit cells) that are
needed to excite surface waves. These surface waves are
Manuscript received 23 November 2022; revised 12 May 2023; accepted responsible for redistributing power along the metasurface
5 June 2023. Date of publication 27 June 2023; date of current version
6 September 2023. This work was supported in part by the Army Research plane rendering it both passive and lossless [15]. Hence,
Office under Grant W911NF-19-1-0359. (Corresponding author: Jordan the metasurface environment becomes highly aperiodic. New
Budhu.) extraction approaches or unit cell design procedures for these
Jordan Budhu is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineer-
ing, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA (e-mail: [email protected]). cases, which also inherently account for the printed-circuit
Nicholas Ventresca and Anthony Grbic are with the Department of Electrical geometries spatial dispersion, must be developed to realize
Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, practical designs. This new approach will form a one-to-one
MI 48109 USA (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]). relation between the reduced dimensional space and a realized
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TAP.2023.3288549. prototype. Thus, it unlocks the promise of metamaterials and
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2023.3288549 metasurface technology.
0018-926X © 2023 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

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7388 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2023

II. C URRENT A PPROACHES TO U NIT C ELL D ESIGN FOR

A PERIODIC M ETASURFACES
Unit cell design in aperiodic metasurfaces using canonical
printed-circuit elements is described in [18]. Analytical for-
mulas for the extracted sheet impedances of strips, patches,
loops, and meandered lines are provided. The formulas are
tested against periodic full-wave simulation-based extraction
techniques of the same geometries. The formulas were shown
to be inaccurate for all but the strip element. Full-wave
optimization of the printed-circuit dimensions was suggested
as a remedy and using the analytic formulas as a starting
point. The authors do mention that the formulas are inaccurate
for aperiodic metasurfaces, and one should ensure that the
sheet impedances vary adiabatically across the metasurface to
Fig. 1. Spatial dispersion of patterned metallic claddings and inhomogeneous reduce the error. Hence, their technique cannot handle general
excitation in aperiodic metasurfaces. (a) True inhomogeneous excitation of
element number 41 of the metasurface example in Section V due to the
aperiodic metasurface unit cell design.
aperiodic neighbors. (b) Spatial dispersion (dependence of extracted sheet An approach to aperiodic metasurface unit cell design
impedance on tangential wavenumber of excitation) of interdigitated capacitor involving a combination of particle swarm optimization (PSO)
(IDC) with teeth length l = 200 µm. The sheet impedance was obtained and machine learning (ML) is presented in [19]. Surrogate
for an IDC in a locally periodic environment with unit cell dimension
λ /10 × 1.5λ /10 under a TE Floquet plane wave excitation incident at models resulting from the training data of several three-layer
angle θ . unit cell designs are made using an MoM-based electromag-
netic solver. The surrogate models allow a deep neural network
(DNN) to predict the required unit cell geometry given the
In this article, an approach is presented for metasurface unit constituent material parameters the cell is intended to emulate.
cell design in aperiodic environments. The approach begins The predicted unit cell geometry is then fine-tuned using
with a solved linear system representing the homogenized PSO to obtain the final unit cell geometry. Pearson et al.
electromagnetics problem (e.g., from the method of moments validated their unit cell design approach through experiment
(MoMs), finite-element method, and discrete dipole approx- in [20]. Notable discrepancies arise between the far-field
imation). Each row of the solved linear system equates the performance of the homogenized model and the metasurface
total impedance (sheet plus self-impedance) to the ratio of the made from the realized unit cells since the aperiodic envi-
local electric field and the induced surface current density. ronment is not accounted for in the realization step. Thus,
The inhomogeneous local field obtained from a row of the this approach only approximately adheres to the performance
linear system is applied to a single parameterized, printed- of the homogenized models used in the design. In some
circuit element as an impressed excitation. The induced surface cases, the realized prototype failed to meet the targeted far-
current density is then calculated using full-wave simulation. field objectives. The authors acknowledge that the lack of
The surface current density is subsequently exported and accurate mutual coupling modeling during the realization step
sampled at the discretization of the linear system. The sampled is likely the cause of discrepancies. Hence, this technique
surface current is inserted into the linear system in place of also cannot handle general aperiodic metasurface unit cell
the homogenized surface current of the unit cell. Using the design.
columns of the linear system, the field scattered by the printed- In [21], the systematic design of Huygens-type unit cells
circuit unit cell onto all neighboring unit cells and support consisting of collocated, orthogonal electric and magnetic
structures (ground planes, dielectrics, and so on) is found. It is dipoles is presented along with an experimental demonstra-
compared to that scattered from the homogenized unit cell. tion of plane wave refraction. The unit cells are designed
The geometrical parameter describing the printed-circuit unit using periodic boundary conditions, and hence, the unit cell
cell is varied until agreement between these scattered fields geometry must vary adiabatically for inhomogeneous meta-
is made. In this way, a printed-circuit element can be found, surfaces. The measured results show notable discrepancies
which is a drop-in replacement for the homogenized element when compared with simulations. The authors attribute this
used in the design. to poor coupling between the feed horn and lens illumination
Section II reviews current approaches to unit cell design system. As this technique is applicable to adiabatically varying
in aperiodic metasurfaces. The section shows that the spe- metasurface unit cell geometries, it also cannot handle general
cific problem tackled in this article is unsolved. This article aperiodic metasurface unit cell design.
proposes a solution to this problem. Building off of [16] In cases where the required constituent surface parameters
and [17], in Section III, the proposed approach is pre- do vary adiabatically, a unit cell design can be approached
sented. In Sections IV and V, two aperiodic metasurfaces using the locally periodic approximation. Examples are the
are realized using the proposed unit cell design approach. metasurface designs featuring embedded sources in [14]
The performance is compared against the same metasurfaces and [22]. Both metasurface designs, which transform the field
realized using locally periodic material parameter extraction radiated by a substrate-embedded stripline feed to aperture
techniques. This article concludes with Section VI. An e jωt fields exhibiting uniform amplitude and phase, were designed
time convention is assumed and suppressed throughout this using inverse design coupled with integral equation model-
article. ing. They were realized using sheet impedance extraction

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BUDHU et al.: UNIT CELL DESIGN FOR APERIODIC METASURFACES 7389

Fig. 2. Metasurface with five unit cells and its matrix equation representation. (a) Step 1: use the row of the solved block matrix equation to derive the local
electric field exciting a unit cell. (b) Step 2: use the column to determine the field scattered by a unit cell onto its neighbors. Each block is K × K , where K
is the number of unknowns placed on each homogenized sheet (in the example in the figure, K = 5). The shaded row/column is for the p = 2 element.

techniques based on local periodicity and exhibited good III. P ROPOSED A PPROACH TO U NIT C ELL D ESIGN FOR
agreement in simulation with the homogenized metasurfaces A PERIODIC M ETASURFACES
performance. However, when the surface parameters vary
nonadiabatically, these same design approaches and locally The proposed approach to unit cell design is detailed in this
periodic-based surface parameter extraction techniques pro- section. The starting point is a metasurface design consisting
duce large errors in the scattered fields. Full-wave cladding of a spatially variant, homogenized impedance sheet in the
optimization is required to correct the scattered fields as presence or absence of a grounded substrate. The metasurface
evidenced in [7] and [10]. For metasurfaces containing a larger is modeled by a matrix equation. In our case, the matrix
number of elements, these full-wave optimizations of the entire equation is obtained from the MoMs and solved for all
cladding may not be possible. unknowns, as in the designs of [13] and [14]. Hence, both
A metasurface is said to be aperiodic when either the the homogenized sheet impedances and the current density on
neighboring unit cells on a regular grid are unique or when them are known. For an overview of the design of aperiodic,
the elements are placed on an irregular grid. A technique metasurfaces using integral equations to obtain these values,
presented in [23] allows for aperiodic metasurface design see [25].
on irregular grids. By modeling the metasurface elements As an example, consider the metasurface shown in Fig. 2.
as discrete dipoles, the polarizability model can be used to This figure shows a 1-D array of five homogenized sheet
compute the dipole moment given the exciting local electric impedances. The electromagnetic problem described here is
field. The local electric field is computed by a combination 2-D, and hence, the out-of-plane wavenumber is equal to 0.
of dipole summation for the nearest neighbors and cur- However, the approach is applicable to 3-D problems as well.
rent sheet homogenization for the far elements [24]. The As shown in Fig. 2, Step 1 uses the rows of the matrix
desired scattered fields are expressed in terms of the induced equation to find the local field exciting each unit cell. The
dipole moments. The metasurface can be designed, element- local field consists of the incident electric field plus the
by-element, for any grid placement of the dipoles. This electric field scattered by the neighboring unit cells. This local
approach has the limitation of being applicable to metasurfaces field is then impressed onto a printed-circuit unit cell in a
made from elements which can be well modeled using the separate full-wave simulation. The surface current density is
dipole-to-dipole interactions. This is not the case for densely exported from the full-wave simulation and imported (sampled
packed, subwavelength printed-circuit geometries comprising at the MoM discretization) into the current coefficient vector
most metasurfaces in current literature. Hence, this technique on the right-hand side of the matrix equation. Step 2 uses
also cannot handle general aperiodic metasurface unit cell the columns of the matrix equation to calculate the field
design. scattered from the printed-circuit unit cell onto its neighboring
In this article, we present an approach that models the elements. This calculation is used to form a cost function
surface currents on printed-circuit geometries without resorting comparing the scattered fields from the homogenized unit
to dipole approximations and is thus applicable to a wider cell and the printed-circuit unit cell. The cost function is
range of designs. The metasurface is broken into equal-sized used in a one-parameter optimization to determine the unit
and spaced unit cells, each of which contains a unique printed- cell geometry, which couples to all neighboring elements
circuit element. The unit cells can vary nonadiabatically with equivalently to the homogenized sheet. Since the optimization
large changes in neighboring cell geometries. The details is over only one parameter (the geometrical variable describing
of the proposed unit cell design approach are provided in the printed-circuit parameterization), the optimization is fast
Section III. and converges in only a few iterations. Since the full-wave
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7390 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2023

simulation is performed over a single unit cell, each iteration where n = 1, 2, . . . , n, . . . , K is a sample index, K is the total
is computed rapidly, making the entire realization (patterning) number of unknowns placed horizontally on the pth homog-
process practical even for large metasurfaces. The details of enized sheet in the moment method problem (see Fig. 2),
the approach are described next. 1x is their separation, and h e and we are the printed-circuit
geometry width and height, respectively (see the inset of Fig. 6
A. Step 1 (Details) or 11). Application of (2) makes the current density of the
Consider a block matrix equation similar to that shown in printed-circuit geometry compatible with the matrix equation
Fig. 2 that models the electromagnetic problem of an excited, modeling the 2-D electromagnetic problem. It can then be
homogenized metasurface. Each block is K × K , where K is substituted in for I p in the current coefficient vector on the
the number of unknowns placed in each homogenized unit cell right-hand side of matrix equation. In Fig. 2(b), this is shown
(see Fig. 2). Consider the equality constructed from the pth as the blue shaded block I 2 for p = 2 in the current coefficient
row of the block matrix equation. It describes the response of vector.
the pth element of the metasurface. In Fig. 2, this equality
is highlighted in blue for the p = 2 element. In the matrix B. Step 2 (Details)
p
equation obtained using the MoMs, Vm represents the averages
The pth column of the block matrix equation is then used to
of the incident electric field over each of the m pulse basis p
pq calculate the scattered field, E scat , due to the current density
functions placed on the pth impedance sheet. The entry Z mn
in (2) onto its neighboring elements and ground plane. A cost
represents the coupling between the nth pulse basis function
function is formed, which compares the fields scattered by the
on impedance sheet q and the mth pulse testing function on
homogenized unit cell (impedance sheet) to the printed-circuit
impedance sheet p (Z 15 54
, for example shown in red in Fig. 2),
sp unit cell
while Z m represents the homogenized sheet impedance of the r r 
q
pth impedance sheet (constant for all m on p). Finally, In 1 p
† p
1 p
† 
p

f = 1E scat 1E scat + 1E n f 1E n f
represents the induced surface current density on each of the M−K S
n pulse basis functions placed on impedance sheet q. The (3)
total impedance (sheet impedance plus the self-impedance) where † indicates the Hermitian transpose, M is the total
of element p can be obtained by moving all blocks except number of rows in the impedance matrix, and
the self-scattering block ( p = q) to the left-hand side of the X
p
1E scat = Z q p I p,ImpSheet − I p,PrintCir .


equation and dividing (element-wise) by the induced current (4)
density on element p, namely q̸ = p
p
V p − q̸= p Z pq I q
P
Eloc Note, I p,ImpSheet
is obtained directly from the solved matrix
pp sp
= ηaperiodic (l).


= = Z + Z
Jp Ip equation describing the homogenized metasurface. Since (4)
(1) does not consider self-scattering, the second term of (3)
The numerator of the left-hand side is the inhomogeneous local compares the near fields just above element p, namely,
p p,ImpSheet p,PrintCir
electric field. For example, this is how the plot in Fig. 1(a)
p
1E n f = E n f −E n f . The near fields are analytically
was calculated. The local electric field, Eloc , is impressed calculated from the current densities I p,ImpSheet and I p,PrintCir
onto a parameterized (by l) printed-circuit geometry using using the 2-D Green’s function, at S points along a horizontal
the magnetic current sheet box shown in Fig. 3, and the line λ /2 wide and λ /5 above the element. The cost function
surface current density induced on the printed-circuit geometry (3) is minimized as a function of the length of the interdigitated
is computed using a full-wave solver, in this case COMSOL metallic fingers, l, of the interdigitated capacitor, for example.
Multiphysics. Since the problem is 2-D, the printed circuit This process is repeated for each element p in the metasurface
can be placed in a parallel-plate waveguide. To model the to obtain the patterned metallic cladding.
higher order coupling generated by the printed-circuit element
not modeled by the homogenized sheet, an image printed-
IV. E XAMPLE 1: A W IDE -A NGLE R EFLECTING
circuit geometry can be placed at y = −2d and excited
M ETASURFACE
with −Eloc . The magnetic current sheet box excitation can
be viewed as an infinitely long, invariant, magnetic frill. The An aperiodic metasurface with fast field variation is a finite
computed surface current density is then exported as a function width, wide-angle reflecting metasurface. The metasurface
of both the x and z coordinates. The exported surface current considered is shown in Fig. 4. The metasurface consists
density, JsC O M S O L (x, z), is then homogenized (averaged) ver- of 54 unit cells each of width wu = 1.5λ /10 along the
tically and sampled at the moment method (matrix equation) x-direction. The unit cells are h u = 1.5λ /10 tall in the
discretization z-direction and periodic along that direction. Each unit cell is
filled with an IDC of width we = λ /15 and height h e = h u .
I p,PrintCir There are K = 20 unknowns placed in each unit cell. The 8λ
h iT
= I1
p,PrintCir
, I2
p,PrintCir p,PrintCir
, . . . , Inp,PrintCir , . . . , I K wide metasurface is separated from a 7.8λ wide ground plane
Z we /2  by a λ /20 thick Rohacell HF31 foam substrate with relative
we permittivity ϵr = 1.04 (approximated as free space in design).

n1x
= δ x+ − A normally incident plane wave at 10 GHz is reflected to an
−we /2 2 2
 Z h e /2  angle of 70◦ . The design of this metasurface is challenging
1
× JsC O M S O L (x, z)dz d x (2) since a plane wave illumination strongly illuminates the finite
h e −h e /2 edges of the metasurface and produces strong diffraction,

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BUDHU et al.: UNIT CELL DESIGN FOR APERIODIC METASURFACES 7391

Fig. 4. Representative figure of a finite-width, wide-angle reflecting meta-

surface of example 1. The geometry is infinite and invariant in the z-direction
and finite and spatially variant in the x- and y-directions. The metasurface
contains three layers, one patterned metallic cladding layer suspended above
a grounded Rohacell foam substrate with near unity relative permittivity.
Note: metasurface elements have been enlarged for clarity and visibility, and
therefore, fewer are shown than the actual metasurface. The actual metasurface
contains 54λ /15 wide elements, each separated by 0.15λ .

Fig. 5. Metasurface sheet impedances. (a) Complex sheet impedance

of Phase 1 obtained by directly solving the governing matrix equation.
(b) Optimized reactive sheet impedance of Phase 2.

Fig. 5(a). Gradient descent optimization, accelerated with the

adjoint variable method, is applied in Phase 2 to convert the
complex-valued sheet into a purely reactive sheet. For details
on the optimization procedure, see [14]. The optimization
introduces surfaces waves by perturbing the reactances (the
Fig. 3. Magnetic sheet current box for exciting a unit cell with the
initial resistances are discarded) of the metasurface until a
local field. (a) Three-dimensional view of the printed-circuit geometry within purely reactive boundary condition is satisfied, which gen-
the magnetic sheet current box. (b) Cross-sectional view of the same. The erates the same far field as the complex-valued sheet from
magnetic sheet current box is designed to bathe the printed circuit in the the direct solve solution [10], [12], [13], [14], [15]. The
inhomogeneous local field within the box and produce zero field outside of
the box. (c) COMSOL multiphysics simulation of the electric field generated result is a metasurface with a highly aperiodic sheet reactance
by the magnetic current sheet box in the absence of a printed circuit inside profile, as shown in Fig. 5(b). It performs identically to the
of it for the case of the inhomogeneous local field shown in Fig. 1(a). complex-valued sheet impedances of Fig. 5(a) at the distances
of interest. One advantage of the optimization is that bounds
can be placed on the sheet reactances to align with realizable
which must be canceled by the metasurface. The metasurface values. In this way, the optimized reactive metasurface is
is designed using the three-phase design approach outlined guaranteed to be realizable through patterning of metallic
in [14] and [25]. In summary, the three-phase design approach claddings. In the example, the reactances were constrained to
involves: 1) a direct solve solution of an integral equation the interval − j170 ≤ ηs ≤ − j30.
modeling the electromagnetics problem and it often results The unit cell design procedure was used to obtain the
in a metasurface requiring local loss and/or gain [26]; 2) patterned metallic cladding for the reactive sheet impedance
a subsequent optimization phase to convert the metasurface profile shown in Fig. 5(b). The patterned metallic cladding
designed in phase 1 to a purely passive and lossless design; is shown compared to the realization using traditional locally
and 3) a metallic patterning phase (the subject of this article). periodic extraction-based approaches in Fig. 6. As can be seen,
The direct solve solution of the integral equation in Phase 1 the unit cell design approach produces a different pattern than
leads to the complex-valued sheet impedance shown in the locally periodic-based approach, which does not consider

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7392 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2023

Fig. 6. Comparison between the claddings obtained from locally periodic Fig. 8. Far-field pattern of the optimized reactive impedance sheet design
based extraction techniques and the proposed aperiodic unit cell design compared to (a) COMSOL multiphysics full-wave simulation of the patterned
technique. metallic cladding obtained from locally periodic extractions and (b) COMSOL
multiphysics full-wave simulation of the patterned metallic cladding obtained
from the proposed aperiodic unit cell design.

Fig. 9. Representative figure of the metasurface reflectarray of example 2.

The geometry is infinite and invariant in the z-direction and finite and spatially
variant in the x- and y-directions. The metasurface contains three layers, one
patterned metallic cladding layer suspended above a grounded Rohacell foam
substrate with near unity relative permittivity. Note: metasurface elements have
been enlarged for clarity and visibility, and therefore, fewer are shown than
the actual metasurface. The actual metasurface contains eighty λ /15 wide
elements, each separated by λ /10.

Fig. 7. Real part of the scattered near field for the metasurface constructed
from the optimized reactive metasurface sheet impedances of Fig. 5(b).
(a) Metasurface realized using the sheet impedance extraction unit cell design
technique based on local periodicity. (b) Metasurface realized using the
proposed aperiodic unit cell design technique.

the spatial dispersion inherent to the printed-circuit geometry

due to the inhomogeneous excitation.
Both the metasurfaces designed using the locally periodic
and aperiodic unit cell design approaches were simulated in
COMSOL Multiphysics. The resulting real part of the scattered
near field is shown in Fig. 7 for both cases. As can be
seen, the metasurface designed using locally periodic-based
extractions [Fig. 7(a)] fails to perform wide-angle reflection, Fig. 10. Metasurface sheet impedances. (a) Complex sheet impedance
of Phase 1 obtained by directly solving the governing matrix equation.
whereas the metasurface designed using the aperiodic unit cell (b) Optimized reactive sheet impedance of Phase 2.
design technique [Fig. 7(b)] does. This is further evident in
Fig. 8, which shows the scattered far field superimposed over
the far field of the metasurface containing the homogenized V. E XAMPLE 2: A L INE S OURCE F ED R EFLECTING AND
impedance sheet. Again, we see that the unit cell extraction C OLLIMATING M ETASURFACE
technique based on local periodicity [5], [6] does not produce As another example, consider the metasurface shown in
the desired far field, whereas the aperiodic unit cell extraction Fig. 9. This metasurface contains 80 unit cells each wu =
technique does. λ /10 wide in the x-direction and h u = 1.5λ /10 high in the

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BUDHU et al.: UNIT CELL DESIGN FOR APERIODIC METASURFACES 7393

Fig. 13. Far-field pattern of the optimized reactive impedance sheet design
Fig. 11. Comparison between the claddings obtained from locally periodic compared to (a) COMSOL multiphysics full-wave simulation of the patterned
based extraction techniques and the proposed aperiodic unit cell design metallic cladding obtained from locally periodic extractions and (b) COMSOL
technique. multiphysics full-wave simulation of the patterned metallic cladding obtained
from the proposed aperiodic unit cell design.

planar wavefront is not generated accurately without the

proposed approach. The far field resulting from both claddings
is compared in Fig. 13. This figure shows that the unit cell
design approach utilizing local periodicity fails to recreate the
sidelobes of the homogenized design, whereas the proposed
unit cell design technique does. Again, without the proposed
unit cell design technique, finite aperiodic metasurfaces cannot
be realized with close adherence to the homogenized models
used in design.

VI. C ONCLUSION
A new approach to designing printed-circuit unit cells in
highly aperiodic metasurfaces was presented. The approach
starts with a solved linear system that models the homoge-
nized metasurface. The inhomogeneous, local, electric field
exciting an individual element in the aperiodic metasurface
environment is found using the matrix equation. This local
Fig. 12. Real part of the scattered near field for the metasurface constructed field is used as the impressed excitation in a separate full-
from the optimized reactive metasurface sheet impedances of Fig. 10(b). wave simulation to compute the induced surface current on the
(a) Metasurface realized using the sheet impedance extraction unit cell design printed-circuit element. The surface current density is sampled
technique based on local periodicity. (b) Metasurface realized using the
proposed aperiodic unit cell design technique. at the discretization of the matrix equation and exported.
The matrix equation is then used to find the scattered field
onto all neighboring elements. The printed-circuit element of
z-direction. Each unit cell contains an IDC of width we = each unit cell is optimized to scatter the same fields onto
λ /15 and height h e = h u . There are K = 20 unknowns placed its neighboring unit cells as the homogenized metasurface.
in each unit cell. The metasurface is supported λ /20 above a Two metasurfaces realized using the proposed unit cell design
perfectly conducting ground plane by a Rohacell HF31 foam approach show excellent agreement with the homogenized
substrate. The ground plane is 8λ wide. The metasurface is sheet model. It was shown that the same agreement cannot be
fed by a 10-GHz electric line source placed along the y-axis at obtained using conventional unit cell design techniques based
F = 2λ above the metasurface. The metasurface is designed on local periodicity.
using the same three-phase design strategy to transform the
incident cylindrical wave into a reflected plane wave traveling R EFERENCES
at an angle of 30◦ with respect to the metasurface normal ( ŷ).
The complex-valued impedance sheet of Phase 1 is shown [1] Y. Liu and X. Zhang, “Metamaterials: A new frontier of science and
technology,” Chem. Soc. Rev., vol. 40, no. 5, p. 2494, 2011.
in Fig. 10(a), and the optimized reactive impedance sheet
[2] C. L. Holloway, E. F. Kuester, J. A. Gordon, J. O’Hara, J. Booth,
result of Phase 2 is shown in Fig. 10(b). The comparison of and D. R. Smith, “An overview of the theory and applications of
the cladding designed using the proposed aperiodic unit cell metasurfaces: The two-dimensional equivalents of metamaterials,” IEEE
design approach to that designed using local periodicity is Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 10–35, Apr. 2012.
[3] E. F. Kuester, M. A. Mohamed, M. Piket-May, and C. L. Holloway,
shown in Fig. 11. As can be seen, the claddings are different. “Averaged transition conditions for electromagnetic fields at a metafilm,”
The real part of the scattered near fields resulting from both IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 51, no. 10, pp. 2641–2651,
claddings is compared in Fig. 12. As can be seen, the reflected Oct. 2003.

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7394 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2023

[4] J. Budhu and A. Grbic, “Recent advances in bianisotropic bound- Jordan Budhu (Member, IEEE) received the M.S.
ary conditions: Theory, capabilities, realizations, and applications,” degree in electrical engineering from California
Nanophotonics, vol. 10, no. 16, pp. 4075–4112, Nov. 2021. State University Northridge, Northridge, CA, USA,
[5] A. M. Patel and A. Grbic, “Modeling and analysis of printed-circuit in 2010, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineer-
tensor impedance surfaces,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 61, ing from the University of California at Los Angeles,
no. 1, pp. 211–220, Jan. 2013. Los Angeles, CA, USA, in 2018.
[6] C. Pfeiffer and A. Grbic, “Metamaterial Huygens’ surfaces: Tailoring He was hired as an Assistant Professor with Vir-
wave fronts with reflectionless sheets,” Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 110, no. 19, ginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 2022, where
May 2013, Art. no. 197401. he is currently the Steven O. Lane Junior Faculty
[7] J. Budhu and A. Grbic, “Fast and accurate optimization of metasur- Fellow of electrical and computer engineering with
faces with gradient descent and the Woodbury Matrix identity,” 2021, the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer
arXiv:2108.02762. Engineering. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Radiation
[8] S. Pearson and S. V. Hum, “Optimization of electromagnetic metasurface Laboratory and a Lecturer with the Department of Electrical Engineering
parameters satisfying far-field criteria,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA,
vol. 70, no. 5, pp. 3477–3488, May 2022. from 2019 to 2022. In 2011 and 2012, he was a Graduate Student Intern with
[9] D.-H. Kwon, “Illusion electromagnetics for free-standing objects using the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA. In 2017, he was
passive lossless metasurfaces,” Phys. Rev. B, Condens. Matter, vol. 101, a Teaching Fellow with the University of California at Los Angeles. His
no. 23, Jun. 2020, Art. no. 235135. research interests include metamaterials and metasurfaces, computational elec-
[10] J. Budhu, E. Michielssen, and A. Grbic, “The design of dual band tromagnetics algorithms for metamaterial and metasurface design, conformal
stacked metasurfaces using integral equations,” IEEE Trans. Antennas beamforming antennas, nanophotonics and metamaterials for the infrared, 3-D
Propag., vol. 70, no. 6, pp. 4576–4588, Jun. 2022. printed inhomogeneous lens design, CubeSat antennas, reflectarray antennas,
[11] V. G. Ataloglou and G. V. Eleftheriades, “Arbitrary wave transforma- and antenna theory.
tions with Huygens’ metasurfaces through surface-wave optimization,” Dr. Budhu’s awards and honors include the 2010 Eugene Cota Robles
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 20, no. 9, pp. 1750–1754, Fellowship from UCLA, the 2012 Best Poster Award at the IEEE Coastal
Sep. 2021. Los Angeles Class-Tech Annual Meeting, the 2018 UCLA Henry Samueli
School of Engineering and Applied Science Excellence in Teaching Award,
[12] J. Budhu and A. Grbic, “Perfectly reflecting metasurface reflectarrays:
the First-Place Award for the 2019 USNC-URSI Ernst K. Smith Student Paper
Mutual coupling modeling between unique elements through homoge-
Competition at the 2019 Boulder National Radio Science Meeting, and the
nization,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 122–134,
Steven O. Lane Junior Faculty Fellowship of Electrical and Computer Engi-
Jan. 2021.
neering at the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
[13] M. Almunif, J. Budhu, and A. Grbic, “Transparent, cascaded-sheet
Virginia Tech.
metasurfaces for field transformations,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp.
Antennas Propag. USNC-URSI Radio Sci. Meeting (AP-S/URSI),
Denver, CO, USA, 2022, pp. 968–969, doi: 10.1109/AP-S/USNC-
Nicholas Ventresca is currently pursuing the B.S.
URSI47032.2022.9887017.
degree in mechanical engineering and a minor
[14] J. Budhu, L. Szymanski, and A. Grbic, “Design of planar and conformal,
in electrical engineering from the University of
passive, lossless metasurfaces that beamform,” IEEE J. Microw., vol. 2,
Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. After gaining his
no. 3, pp. 401–418, Jul. 2022, doi: 10.1109/JMW.2022.3181719.
undergraduate degree, he plans to begin a master’s
[15] A. Epstein and G. V. Eleftheriades, “Synthesis of passive lossless
program in electrical engineering.
metasurfaces using auxiliary fields for reflectionless beam splitting
and perfect reflection,” Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 117, no. 25, Dec. 2016,
Art. no. 256103.
[16] J. Budhu and A. Grbic, “Patterned unit cell design in aperiodic metasur-
faces,” in Proc. 16th Int. Congr. Artif. Mater. Novel Wave Phenomena
(Metamaterials), Sep. 2022, pp. 077–079.
[17] J. Budhu and A. Grbic, “Unit cell polarizability and sheet impedance
extraction in aperiodic environments,” in Proc. 16th Eur. Conf. Antennas Anthony Grbic (Fellow, IEEE) received the
Propag. (EuCAP), Madrid, Spain, Mar. 2022, pp. 1–5. B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
engineering from the University of Toronto, Toronto,
[18] D. Barbaric and Z. Sipus, “Designing metasurfaces with canonical unit
ON, Canada, in 1998, 2000, and 2005, respectively.
cells,” Crystals, vol. 10, no. 10, p. 938, Oct. 2020.
In 2006, he joined the Department of Electri-
[19] P. Naseri, S. Pearson, Z. Wang, and S. V. Hum, “A combined machine-
cal Engineering and Computer Science, University
learning/optimization-based approach for inverse design of nonuniform
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, where he
bianisotropic metasurfaces,” 2021, arXiv:2105.14133.
is currently a Professor. His research interests
[20] S. Pearson, P. Naseri, and S. V. Hum, “A beam-splitting bianisotropic include engineered electromagnetic structures (meta-
metasurface designed by optimization and machine learning,” IEEE materials, metasurfaces, electromagnetic band-gap
Open J. Antennas Propag., vol. 3, pp. 798–811, 2022. materials, and frequency-selective surfaces), anten-
[21] J. P. S. Wong, M. Selvanayagam, and G. V. Eleftheriades, “Design of unit nas, microwave circuits, plasmonics, and analytical electromagnetics/optics.
cells and demonstration of methods for synthesizing Huygens metasur- Dr. Grbic was a recipient of the AFOSR Young Investigator Award
faces,” Photon. Nanostruct.-Fundam. Appl., vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 360–375, and the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award in 2008 and the
Aug. 2014. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in January
[22] G. Xu, V. G. Ataloglou, S. V. Hum, and G. V. Eleftheriades, “Extreme 2010. He received the Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the IEEE
beam-forming with impedance metasurfaces featuring embedded sources Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, the Henry Russel Award from the
and auxiliary surface wave optimization,” IEEE Access, vol. 10, University of Michigan, and the Booker Fellowship from the U.S. National
pp. 28670–28684, 2022. Committee of the International Union of Radio Science in 2011. He was
[23] D.-H. Kwon, “Design of single-layer dense metasurfaces on irregu- the inaugural recipient of the Ernest and Bettine Kuh Distinguished Faculty
lar grids using discrete dipole approximation,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Scholar Award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Science,
Propag., vol. 70, no. 11, pp. 10592–10603, Nov. 2022. University of Michigan, in 2012. He served as the Technical Program Co-
[24] S. Tretyakov, Analytical Modeling in Applied Electromagnetics. Boston, Chair in 2012 and the Topic Co-Chair for the IEEE International Symposium
MA, USA: Artech House, 2003. on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI National Radio Science
[25] J. Budhu and A. Grbic, “Aperiodic metasurface synthesis techniques and Meeting in 2016 and 2017. He is also serving as the Senior Associate
designs,” in Metamaterials-by-Design: Theory, Technologies, and Vision, Chair for Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan.
A. Alu, N. Engheta, A. Massa, and G. Oliveri, Eds. Bellingham, WA, In 2018, he received the University of Michigan Faculty Recognition Award
USA: SPIE, 2023. for outstanding achievement in scholarly research, excellence as a teacher,
[26] V. S. Asadchy, M. Albooyeh, S. N. Tcvetkova, A. Díaz-Rubio, Y. Ra’di, advisor, and mentor, and distinguished service to the institution and profession.
and S. A. Tretyakov, “Perfect control of reflection and refraction He is also an IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Distinguished
using spatially dispersive metasurfaces,” Phys. Rev. B, Condens. Matter, Microwave Lecturer. He was an Associate Editor of IEEE A NTENNAS AND
vol. 94, no. 7, Aug. 2016, Art. no. 075142. W IRELESS P ROPAGATION L ETTERS from 2010 to 2015.

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