A multifunctional metasurface with linear-to-linear and dual-band linear-to-circular reflective polarization conversion

Abstract This paper presents a novel reflective metasurface that can perform high-performance linear-to-linear and linear-to-circular polarization conversion for SatCom and radar sensing in the X, Ku, K, and Ka bands. The proposed unit cell is based on a composite elliptical design created through Boolean operations of six differently sized ellipses on a dielectric slab with a metal plane. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the designed metasurface realizes linear-to-linear polarization (LP-LP) conversion with a polarization conversion ratio exceeding 90% in 9.45–12.72 GHz. Meanwhile, it enables linear-to-circular polarization (LP-CP) conversion in two distinct bands: 14.28–21.95 GHz and 25.37–27.73 GHz, with axial ratios below 3 dB. In these bands, it converts linearly polarized incident waves into left-handed circularly polarized and right-handed circularly polarized waves, respectively, exhibiting multifunctionality across different frequencies. The measured results of the fabricated prototype highly agree with numerical simulation results. This multifunctional metasurface has great application potential in many fields such as satellite links, radar systems, next-generation wireless communication, sensing, and stealth technology.