Generalized Invisibility in Metasurfaces

TL;DR

This paper establishes a universal dipolar framework for achieving electromagnetic invisibility in metasurfaces, emphasizing the necessity of bianisotropic responses and oblique incidence conditions in realistic scenarios.

Contribution

It reveals that invisibility requires non-zero incidence angles or higher-order responses, and introduces effective surface susceptibilities for designing invisible metasurfaces.

Findings

Invisibility in dissimilar media necessitates pure bianisotropic coupling.

Effective surface susceptibilities enable closed-form invisibility conditions.

Full-wave simulations confirm invisibility at oblique incidence.

Abstract

Electromagnetic invisibility, defined as reflectionless transmission with zero phase delay, imposes strict constraints on metasurface designs that go beyond conventional reflection suppression based on the Kerker effect. This condition can be viewed as a metasurface analogue of radiationless states such as anapole excitations. Here, we show that invisibility in metasurfaces embedded in identical media can only be achieved by introducing degrees of freedom, such as non-zero angle of incidence or higher-order multipolar responses. We demonstrate that, in dissimilar substrate and superstrate, achieving invisibility within a dipolar framework fundamentally requires pure bianisotropic coupling, while purely electric and magnetic responses are insufficient for lossless, passive and reciprocal systems. Using effective surface susceptibilities that account for the surrounding media and transverse wave vector, we derive closed-form conditions for both co- and cross-polarized invisibility. Importantly, we also demonstrate that the required bianisotropy does not need to be intrinsic, as an effective bianisotropic response may be achieved with anisotropic metasurface in dissimilar media leading to magnetoelectric coupling. Full-wave simulations of a metasurface at an air-dielectric interface confirm invisibility under oblique incidence. This work establishes a universal dipolar framework for invisible meta-optics in practically realistic scenarios.