Modeling and Simulation of 2D and 3D Metamaterials for Microwave Application

Over the past years, metamaterials have developed from a theoretical term to an area of functional and commercial application. Metamaterials are engineered materials constructed to obtain desired bulk properties by periodically arranging meta-atoms (scatterers). Metamaterials exhibits unusual physical phenomena including negative refraction, super lens, invisibility cloaking, reversed Cherenkov radiation and optical illusion. By arranging electrically tiny scatterers in a two-dimensional pattern at a surface or interface, three dimensional metamaterials can be expanded. This two-dimensional version or the surface counter part of the metamaterial has been called metasurface (includes metafilms, metascreens and metagratings as a special case). For many applications, 2-D metamaterials provide an extremely promising alternative to 3D metamaterials. They have the benefit of taking up less physical space than complete three-dimensional metamaterial structures; as a result, they can be easily fabricated using planar fabrication technology. Metasurfaces has a wide range of applications ranging from polarization manipulation and detection, wavefront shaping, meta-holograms, optical vortex generation, absorbers, controllable smart surfaces, biomedical application, to tunable devices and many more. This paper summarizes recent advances in the physics of metamaterials and metasurfaces. An overview of various simulation methods of these 2D and 3D metamateriasl and their possible application in the electromagnetic spectrum from microwave to terahertz will be discussed in details.