Recent Advances in MEMS Metasurfaces and Their Applications on Tunable Lens.

ABSTRACT

The electromagnetic (EM) properties of metasurfaces depend on both structural design and material properties. microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology offers an approach for tuning metasurface EM properties by structural reconfiguration. In the past 10 years, vast applications have been demonstrated based on MEMS metasurfaces, which proved to have merits including, large tunability, fast speed, small size, light weight, capability of dense integration, and compatibility of cost-effective fabrication process. Here, recent advances in MEMS metasurface applications are reviewed and categorized based on the tuning mechanisms, operation band and tuning speed. As an example, the pros and cons of MEMS metasurfaces for tunable lens applications are discussed and compared with traditional tunable lens technologies followed by the summary and outlook.