A Guide for RIS Fabrication for Quick Prototyping in Lab Settings Using Low Cost Fabrication Techniques

Metasurfaces are planar versions of engineered materials which have interesting electromagnetic (EM) wave manipulation capabilities. Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) are run time programmable metasurfaces and are being researched as 6G wireless communication enablers due to their dynamic EM response. We present an RIS fabrication strategy that can be used in lab settings for quickly prototyping and realizing designs. We have demonstrated sample fabrication using dry etching as well as wet etching. Decision process and scalability considerations have been discussed. This is helpful because quick prototyping can significantly reduce modeling overhead of implementation details and eliminate unrealizable designs.