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Biphysical coding metasurfaces for independent and continuous manipulations of electromagnetic and acoustic waves

Jin Song Ye1, Wen Kang Cao1,*, Kai Ping Nie1, Sheng He1, Kun Hong Li1, Qiao Huang1, Li Ting Wu2,†, and Jie Hu1,‡

  • *Contact author: wkcao@gzu.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: njltwu@hotmail.com
  • ‡Contact author: jiehu@gzu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033166 – Published 19 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/5b62-yd88

Abstract

It still remains a significant challenge using the current technology to fabricate devices with customized functions for both electromagnetic (EM) and acoustic waves since the demand of biphysical manipulation, which means that the same device can be used to control EM and acoustic waves simultaneously, difficult is to satisfy in nature. However, the emergence of metasurfaces provides a new way to synchronously control the propagation for both waves. Unfortunately, the independent and continuous wavefront manipulation of multiple physical fields, including acoustic and EM waves, still requires overcoming significant challenges. In this study, we propose and demonstrate EM-acoustic biphysical coding metasurfaces (BCM) which are capable of independently engineering propagation behaviours for both waves. In addition, continuous phase tunability across each domain can be attained. Eight kinds of unit cells with different geometrical parameters which consist of dual-layers are employed to serve as 2-bit reflection-type meta-atoms, thus offering opportunities for almost arbitrary wavefront manipulation of EM and acoustic waves as desired. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed BCM can perform different functionalities for dual waves, such as multiple-beam generation, focusing, and vortex beam generation, which can be flexibly switched by tuning coding sequences of unit cells. The research results can help to enrich functions of metasurfaces, expand their application scope, and pave the way for the development of biphysical multifunctional devices and applications in the future.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033166– Published 19 August, 2025
  • Received 17 April 2025
  • Accepted 10 July 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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