Dual-mode hyperbolicity, supercanalization, and leakage in self-complementary metasurfaces

Anisotropic Self-Complementary Metasurfaces (SC-MTSs) are structures constituted by an alternation of complementary inductive and capacitive strips, which are "self-dual" according to Babinet's duality principle. They support the propagation of two orthogonally polarized surface-wave modes with the same phase velocity along the principal directions (i.e., along the strips and normal to them). The isofrequency dispersion curves of these modes are hyperbolas, and therefore, these MTSs fall in the category of hyperbolic MTSs. It is shown here that the hyperbolic dispersion curves may degenerate in same cases into almost straight lines, which implies that the velocity of energy transport is constantly directed along the same direction for any possible phasing orthogonal to the strips. In this circumstance, the SC-MTS can be conveniently used to design dual-polarized leaky-wave antennas by modulating the impedances of the complementary strips.