Optically reconfigurable metacheckerboard

This paper presents a new type of metasurface (MTS) particularly suited to the integration of optically controlled switches. It consists of a checkerboard-type layout, made of electrically small complementary metallic patches and apertures. The characteristics of the supported electromagnetic field depend on whether the patches' vertexes are interconnected or not. Specifically, in a structure containing both connected and disconnected patches, the field is confined in the region where patches are connected. This feature offers the possibility of designing arbitrary transmission line paths (and therefore beam forming networks) on the checkerboard MTS (CBMS) by dynamically changing the vertex connections with an optical control. Preliminary experimental results are presented.