Fusion of electromagnetic world and digital world through information metasurface: an interview with Tie Jun Cui

Metasurfaces consist of subwavelength artificial elements (also called meta-atoms) arranged in a two-dimensional fashion. Through careful design of these elements, the metasurfaces can control the amplitude, phase, frequency, and polarization of electromagnetic (EM) waves. Information metasurfaces extend this concept by characterizing the meta-atoms in a digital manner, integrating functionalities for information processing. The information metasurfaces can simultaneously manipulate the EM waves in reprogrammable ways and modulate the digital information in real time, making the fusion of the EM world and digital world. The information metasurfaces have found diverse applications in wireless communications, intelligent sensing and imaging, intelligent computing, and internet of things (IoT). Prof. Tie Jun Cui is affiliated with Southeast University in Nanjing, China, where he serves as the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves. He is a prominent researcher in the field of metamaterial, metasurface, and computational electromagnetics. He has proposed the concepts, and made systematic studies, of digital coding metasurfaces and programmable metasurfaces, and established the system of information metasurfaces, building a direct link between the electromagnetic world and digital world. NSR spoke to Professor Cui on the recent advancement and the prospects of information metasurfaces.