WMD: Materials-to-Systems Roadmap for Programmable Apertures: Sub-6GHz to THz

Presentation Abstract
This workshop surveys a materials-to-systems roadmap for reconfigurable apertures spanning sub-6GHz, FR3 (≈7–24GHz), mm-wave, and THz. Highlights include dual-polarized RFSOI-switched reflectarrays at 3–6GHz and 13–15GHz with true-time-delay or ultra-short phase shifters, achieving ±60° all-plane scanning and <1.5% EVM with 64-QAM. A 28GHz origami “eggbox” phased array merges electronic beam steering with controlled shape morphing to deliver near-360° azimuth coverage, multibeam and quasi-isotropic patterns, and additively manufactured foldable interconnects with ∼0.02dB/mm insertion loss. At higher frequencies, phase-transition and phase-change materials (VO₂, W:VO₂, GeTe) enable optically addressable, nonvolatile metasurfaces for broadband modulation, beam control, and tunable lensing in the sub-THz/THz regime, while plasmonic-nanoantenna platforms yield compact, high-SNR THz spectroscopy and imaging for sensing and security. CMOS-integrated, tile-scalable programmable metasurfaces and RIS architectures support resilient links and massive MIMO; electromagnetically consistent models and optimization frameworks extend to holographic surfaces and near-field ISAC. New multi-beam transmissive/reflective surface architectures up to 140GHz, OTA calibration and range-reduction methods for large reconfigurable arrays, and binary-coded genetic optimization of pixelated multiband antennas complete the program. Collectively, the sessions chart a path to low-loss, wide-angle, and highly programmable apertures that unify communications, sensing, and localization while remaining manufacturable, scalable, and verifiable.