Metamaterial-Based Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface: 3-D Meta-Atoms
Controlled by Graphene Structures
Abstract
The upcoming high-speed wireless communication systems will be hosted by
millimeter and sub-millimeter-wave frequency bands. At these
frequencies, electromagnetic waves suffer from severe propagation losses
and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios. A new wireless communication
paradigm has arrived to resolve this situation through the use of
reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS). These metadevices are
designed to reconfigure the wireless environment in a smart way.
Traditional RIS designs based on the implementation of 2-D
configurations have been considered up to now. However, 3-D structures
enable an extra degree of freedom in the design that can be taken as an
advantage for the development of improved RIS structures with advanced
functionalities. This article proposes the implementation of a novel
electronically-reconfigurable RIS based on the use of 3-D graphene
meta-atoms. The reconfigurability lies on the graphene conductivity,
easily tunable with a biasing voltage. Different conductivity values
vary the meta-atom electromagnetic response, modifying the RIS
functionality. A multi-objective optimization framework determines the
optimal phase state of each meta-atom to accomplish the desired RIS
performance. The operation of the RIS as an efficient beam
steerer/splitter, absorber and polarization selector is validated with
full-wave results.