Optical Huygens’ Metasurfaces with Independent Control of the Magnitude and Phase of the Local Reflection Coefficients

Implementation of abrupt phase discontinuities along a surface has been the theme of recent research on electromagnetic metasurfaces. Simple functionalities such as reflecting, refracting, or focusing plane waves have been demonstrated with devices featuring phase discontinuities, but optical surfaces allowing independent magnitude and phase control on the scattered waves have yet to emerge. In this paper, we propose the first true optical Huygens’ surface, which explicitly utilizes orthogonal electric and magnetic responses to realize total control on an optical surface’s local reflection coefficients. This extends the functionality of metasurfaces to an unprecedented level. We first demonstrate that a nanorod gap-surface plasmon resonator can act as a Huygens’ source. Thereafter, by properly tuning and rotating these resonators, we realize arbitrary reflection optical metasurfaces—surfaces for which the local reflection coefficients can be independently tailored in both magnitude and phase. We demonstrate the versatility of this approach through designs of a metasurface that asymmetrically reflects two copolarized beams and a Dolph-Tschebyscheff optical reflectarray.