Controlling Reflection and Transmission with a Single Layer

Controlling the electromagnetic response of general structures is one of the most ambitious purposes, containing numerous different objectives that can be utilized in implementing various optical components and electronic equipment. In this paper, the simplest configuration of a single isotropic layer is considered, which is excited by a normally incident plane wave. We introduce the “controllability plane” whose axes measure the magnitudes of the reflection and transmission coefficients. A metric expressing how many combinations of electromagnetic responses can be achieved by the device when sweeping the utilized material is also defined. The mapping from the plane of the complex dielectric constant to the controllability plane is investigated, and the variation of the aforementioned metric is represented.