Plasmonic Airy Beam Generation by Both Phase and Amplitude Modulation with Metasurfaces

The Airy beam represent the only possible nondiffracting wave packets in 1D planar systems with curved trajectory, which has attracted considerable research interest due to its nondiffracting, self-healing properties, and unique self-bending behavior in the absence of any external potential. Because of the complexity of the Airy function and generation structure, an Airy beam with both phase and amplitude modulation is hard to realize. Here, a simplified metasurface composed of orthogonal nanorods is proposed, which can generate plasmonic Airy beams with both phase and amplitude modulation. By changing the configuration of the nanorods, the phase and amplitude can be simultaneously modulated. The bending degree of the generated Airy beam can be easily controlled by changing the number of nanorods. The proposed controllable Airy beam with both phase and amplitude modulation overcomes certain limitations of the customary Airy beam and can aid in the development of more accurate applications of the Airy beam in microfields.