Hanyu Xue

Current microwave metasurfaces predominantly suffer from the disadvantages of optically opaque and phase-only modulation, which inevitably hinder their application potential. Herein, we have proposed a simple but efficient strategy for designing a multifunctional metasurface that is capable of simultaneously achieving visible transparency and microwave amplitude–phase manipulation. The designed meta-atom consists of a metal-frame-based H-shaped resonator and a metallic mesh layer separated by a transparent dielectric substrate, enabling eight-level phase modulation with a π/4 interval and continuous amplitude modulation covering the range of 0–0.9 at 16 GHz. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, a spatially multiplexed complex-amplitude hologram utilizing the designed meta-atom is simulated and experimentally validated. The results show that two distinct holographic images can be reconstructed in different imaging planes, and the measured average optical transmittance attains 63.7% at a wavelength range of 400–800 nm. Our proposed design strategy paves the way to an optically transparent microwave metasurface which is expected to have great potential in application scenarios requiring both visible transparency and microwave wavefront control.

In this paper, a novel topology and method for designing a multi-band rectenna is proposed to improve its RF-DC efficiency. The rectifier achieves simultaneous rectification using both series and parallel configurations by connecting two branches to the respective terminals of the diode, directing the energy input from two ports to the anode and cathode of the diode. Six desired operating frequency bands are evenly distributed across these two branches, each of which is connected to antennas corresponding to their specific operating frequencies, serving as the receiving end of the system. To optimize the design process, a low-pass filter is incorporated into the rectifier design. This filter works in conjunction with a matching network that includes filtering capabilities to isolate the two ports of the rectifier. The addition of the filter ensures that each structure within the rectifier can be designed independently without adversely affecting the performance of the already completed structures. Based on the proposed design methodology, a dual-port rectenna operating at six frequency bands—1.85 GHz, 2.25 GHz, 2.6 GHz, 3.52 GHz, 5.01 GHz, and 5.89 GHz—was designed, covering the 4G, 5G, and Wi-Fi/WLAN frequency bands. The measured results indicate that high-power conversion efficiency was achieved at an input power of −10 dBm: 43.01% @ 1.85 GHz, 41.00% @ 2.25 GHz, 41.33% @ 2.6 GHz, 35.88% @ 3.52 GHz, 22.36% @ 5.01 GHz, and 19.27% @ 5.89 GHz. When the input power is −20 dBm, the conversion efficiency of the rectenna can be improved from 5.2% for single-tone input to 27.7% for six-tone input, representing a 22.5 percentage point improvement. The proposed rectenna demonstrates significant potential for applications in powering low-power sensors and other devices within the Internet of Everything context.