The Far-/Near-Field Beam Squint and Solutions for THz Intelligent Reflecting Surface Communications

Terahertz (THz) and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) have been regarded as two promising technologies to improve the capacity and coverage for future 6G networks. Generally, IRS is usually equipped with large-scale elements when implemented at THz frequency. In this case, the near-field model and beam squint should be considered. Therefore, in this article, we investigate the far-field and near-field beam squint problems in THz IRS communications for the first time. The far-field and near-field channel models are constructed based on the different electromagnetic radiation characteristics. Next, we first analyze the far-field beam squint and its effect for the beam gain based on the cascaded base station (BS)-IRS-user channel model, and then the near-field case is studied. To overcome the far-field and near-field beam squint effects, we propose to apply delay adjustable metasurface to IRS, and develop a scheme of optimizing the reflecting phase shifts and time delays of IRS elements, which effectively eliminates the beam gain loss caused by beam squint. Finally, simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed schemes in combating the far-field and near-field beam squint.