Refracting Metasurfaces without Spurious Diffraction

Abstract

Refraction represents one of the most fundamental operations that may be performed by a metasurface. However, simple phasegradient metasurface designs suffer from restricted angular deflection due to spurious diffraction orders. It has been recently shown, using a circuit-based approach, that refraction without spurious diffraction, or diffraction-free, can fortunately be achieved by a transverse metasurface exhibiting either loss-gain or bianisotropy. Here, we rederive these conditions using a medium-based - and hence more insightfull - approach based on Generalized Sheet Transition Conditions (GSTCs) and surface susceptibility tensors, and experimentally demonstrate two diffraction-free refractive metasurfaces that are essentially lossless, passive, bianisotropic and reciprocal.