Restoring Intrinsic Properties of Electromagnetic Radiators Using Ultralightweight Integrated Metasurface Cloaks

The concept of invisibility has garnered long-standing interest throughout human history but has only been realized experimentally within the past decade, albeit over a limited bandwidth. While the physical wave phenomenon of a reduced scattering signature has been demonstrated with different cloaking methods such as transformation optics and scattering cancellation, such technology has yet to be incorporated into any practical real-world devices. Through the use of quasi-2D functional metasurfaces, the long-standing issue of simultaneous mutual coupling and radiation blockage is addressed that occurs when two or more electromagnetic radiators are placed in close proximity to one another. The proposed compact and ultralightweight metasurfaces, comprising arrays of subwavelength electric and magnetic resonators with tailored dispersive properties, are capable of fully restoring the intrinsic properties of real-world electromagnetic radiators when placed in a multiradiator environment. This work introduces a general design approach to bridge the gap between the theory and practice for cloaks, which is applicable to microwave, terahertz, and optical radiators, as well as acoustic and thermal sources. Moreover, this technology provides an unprecedented opportunity for enabling high-density deployment of radiating systems with low interference and undistorted signal wave fronts.