Metasurface has great capabilities in tailoring the electromagnetic (EM) waves in a controllable way owing to the carefully designed and arranged subwavelength meta-atoms. In this review paper, the digital version of metasurface, information metasurface (IM), is systematically introduced with its application in wireless communications. IM extends the research scope of metasurface from physics to the information perspective, in which the meta-atoms are represented by using digital codes “0” and “1” to characterize the EM responses. It can achieve programmable controls of EM waves in real time by integrating with the field-programmable gate array (FPGA). On the other hand, the digital coding strategy bridges the physical world and digital world, and further make the metasurface realize direct information processing. With the outstanding advantages, IMs have shown great potentials to bring revolutionary applications in wireless communications. In this article, the basic concepts and principles of IMs and their programmable features are presented first. Then it focuses on the IM-based new architecture transmitters, as well as the IM-integrated wireless networks in more detail. Finally, the current progress and the future directions of IMs in the wireless communications are respectively summarized.

中文翻译：

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基于信息元表面的无线通信

由于精心设计和布置的亚波长超原子，超颖表面具有以可控的方式定制电磁波的强大功能。在这篇综述文章中，系统介绍了超颖表面的数字版本，即信息超颖表面（IM），并将其应用于无线通信中。IM将形而上学的研究范围从物理学扩展到了信息学的角度，其中，通过使用数字代码“ 0”和“ 1”来表示超原子，以表征电磁响应。通过与现场可编程门阵列（FPGA）集成，它可以实时实现对EM波的可编程控制。另一方面，数字编码策略在物理世界和数字世界之间架起了桥梁，进一步使超表面实现了直接信息处理。凭借突出的优势，IM具有巨大的潜力，可以在无线通信中带来革命性的应用。本文首先介绍了IM的基本概念和原理及其可编程功能。然后，本文将重点介绍基于IM的新体系结构发射机，以及与IM集成的无线网络。最后，分别总结了无线通信中IM的现状和发展方向。