Analytical Design of Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Metagratings for Perfect Anomalous Reflection

We present an analytical scheme for the design of realistic metagratings for wide-angle engineered reflection. These recently proposed planar structures can reflect an incident plane wave into a prescribed (generally nonspecular) angle with very high efficiencies, using only a single meta-atom per period. Such devices offer a means to overcome the implementation difficulties associated with standard metasurfaces (consisting of closely packed subwavelength meta-atoms) and the relatively low efficiencies of gradient metasurfaces. In contrast to previous work, in which accurate systematic design was limited to metagratings unrealistically suspended in free space, we derive herein a closed-form formalism allowing the realization of printed circuit board (PCB) metagrating perfect reflectors, comprised of loaded conducting strips defined on a standard metal-backed dielectric substrate. The derivation yields a detailed procedure for the determination of the substrate thickness and conductor geometry required to achieve unitary coupling efficiencies, without requiring even a single full-wave simulation. Our methodology, verified via commercial solvers, ultimately allows one to proceed from a theoretical design to synthesis of a full physical structure, avoiding the time-consuming numerical optimizations typically involved in standard metasurface design.