3D printed metasurface for generating a Bessel beam with arbitrary focusing directions.

In this Letter, a metasurface combined with emerging 3D printing technology is proposed. The proposed metasurface regards the simple cube as the unit cell, and the height of the cube is the only variable. A nearly linear transmission phase range covering 360° operating at 20 GHz is obtained when the height is regulated in [2.26 mm, 11.20 mm]. Therefore, the proposed unit cell can be adopted to any metasurface with various functions. Taking the generation of a non-diffractive Bessel beam as an example, two metasurfaces composed of 30×30 units with different focusing directions are designed based on non-diffractive theory and the generalized law of refraction. Two prototypes are 3D printed and measured by a near-field scanning system. The measured results validate our design with satisfactory focusing and beam deflection performance. Additionally, the 3D printed metasurface has lower cost and a shorter processing cycle, and avoids metal loss. Therefore, a 3D printed metasurface is an excellent candidate that can be applied in millimeter wave or even higher frequency bands.