In this study , we utilized an alternative design principle and revealed that the metagratings based on extraordinary optical diffraction ( EOD ) can achieve arbitrary wavefront shaping with extreme angle tolerance in a broadband spectral range . The meta - atoms in the EOD metagratings were formed by uniformly sized plasmonic nanorods , and the local periodicity between the meta - atoms determines a discrete set of diffraction channels . Based on EOD 17,19,47 , an architecture , in which plasmonic nanorods were placed on top of a dielectric spacer with a metallic background , was employed to funnel the impinging light into the desired diffraction channel with near - unity efficiency . By further continuously displacing the nanorod within each unit cell according to the strategy of a detour phase 48 , customized phase profiles for molding arbitrary wavefronts of light can be generated . Because the phase modulation rule for a EOD metagrating is intrinsically independent of the incident angles and wavelengths , the wavefront shaping capabilities are robust for a broad bandwidth and for an extremely large range of incident angles ( close to the grazing incidence ) . Our proposed EOD metagrating does not rely on complicated and asymmetric meta - atom inclusions [ 49][50][51][52][53][54 ] and thus significantly simplifies the metasurface design procedures and lowers the fabrication demand , which is highly desirable for various holographic applications , including high - fidelity three - dimensional displays , data encryption , and anti - counterfeiting . Figure 1a shows an illustration of the proposed EOD metagrating composed of periodic arrays of identical plasmonic nanorods with width w and length L , which are placed above a dielectric spacer of thickness h and a metallic background . The facile binary EOD metagrating achieves near - unity efficiency light steering without the necessity of spatially varying meta - atoms to mimic a blazed grating ( Supplementary Fig . S1 ) . The EOD metagrating works in specific diffractive regimes , where only zeroth and −first ( or first ) diffraction orders are allowed to propagate in free space . Those EOD regimes can be determined by the following conditions , 2π