Wave propagation control and switching for wireless power transfer using tunable 2-D magnetic metamaterials

Magnetic metamaterials operating at low megahertz frequencies provide various important commercial and research applications. In this work, we investigate the control of wave propagation in two-dimensional (2-D) tunable magnetic metamaterials for wireless power transfer (WPT). The propagation control is achieved by using reconfigurable defect cavities formed in the metamaterial, which allows for the dynamic creation of various waveguide configurations with switching control. The physical mechanism for creating the cavity is described using Fano interference, in which the resonant frequency of the cavity falls into the bandgap of the metasurface. And the routing and transmission control of the proposed waveguide is easily achieved by resonant switching. The proposed approach allows highly localized, strong field confinement in the deep subwavelength scale of 2.6λ × 10⁻³. The transmission losses and bandwidths of various dynamically tunable metamaterial waveguides are experimentally characterized. This result can find useful applications for integrated surface wave devices and planar WPT.