Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces: Bridging the gap between scattering and reflection

Understand

In this work we address the distance dependence of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS).

• As differentiating factor to other works in the literature, we focus on the array near-field, what allows us to comprehend and expose the promising potential of RIS.
• The latter mostly implies an interplay between the physical size of the RIS and the size of the Fresnel zones at the RIS location, highlighting the major role of the phase.
• To be specific, the point-like (or zero-dimensional) conventional scattering characterization results in the well-known dependence with the fourth power of the distance.