Prephase-Based Equivalent Amplitude Tailoring for Low Sidelobe Levels of 1-Bit Phase-Only Control Metasurface Under Plane Wave Incidence

A prephase synthesis method is proposed for sidelobe level (SLL) suppression of a 1 bit phase-only control metasurface under plane wave incidence. The array factor of the metasurface with
$N \times N$
unit cells shows that controlling the number of prephases with varying values over the reflective surface can equivalently control the amplitude. Different from optimizing the prephase distribution, selection of the 0 and
$\pi /2$
prephases in specific
$N$
regions is used to suppress the SLLs. Therefore, the number of parameters in the optimization can be dramatically reduced from
$N^{2}$
to
${N}$
. The prephase distribution is then designed based on the optimized number of prephases and a symmetric matrix for SLL suppression in the entire space. The SLLs are further suppressed by optimizing some of the unit cell states based on similar equivalent amplitude tailoring. Simulations and measurements of a set of 1 bit reflective metasurfaces with 20
$\times $
20 unit cells verify that the phase-only control metasurface realizes SLL suppression to −13 dB for multiple beam directions from
$- 30^\circ $
to 30 ° with a 10° step under normal plane wave incidence.