Designing Multi-functional Metamaterials

Abstract: The ability to design passive structures that perform different operations on different electromagnetic fields is key to many technologies, from beam-steering to optical computing. While many techniques have been developed to optimise structure to achieve specific functionality through inverse design, designing multi-function materials remains challenging. We present a semi-analytic method, based on the discrete dipole approximation, to design multi-functional metamaterials. To demonstrate the generality of our method, we design a device that operates at optical wavelengths and beams light into different directions depending on the source polarisation and a device that works at microwave wavelengths and sorts plane waves by their angle of incidence.