Electromechanically Tunable Metasurface Transmission Waveplate at Terahertz Frequencies
arXiv:1711.08003 · doi:10.1364/OPTICA.5.000303
Abstract
Dynamic polarization control of light is essential for numerous applications ranging from enhanced imaging to materials characterization and identification. We present a reconfigurable terahertz metasurface quarter-waveplate consisting of electromechanically actuated micro-cantilever arrays. Our anisotropic metasurface enables tunable polarization conversion cantilever actuation. Specifically, voltage-based actuation provides mode selective control of the resonance frequency, enabling real-time tuning of the polarization state of the transmitted light. The polarization tunable metasurface has been fabricated using surface micromachining and characterized using terahertz time domain spectroscopy. We observe a ~230 GHz cantilever actuated frequency shift of the resonance mode, sufficient to modulate the transmitted wave from pure circular polarization to linear polarization. Our CMOS-compatible tunable quarter-waveplate enriches the library of terahertz optical components, thereby facilitating practical applications of terahertz technologies.
References in corpus (9)
- A Perfect Metamaterial Absorber
- A review of metasurfaces: physics and applications
- Terahertz metamaterials for linear polarization conversion and anomalous refraction
- Planar Metamaterials for Antireflection Coating
- 90 degree polarization rotator using a bilayered chiral metamaterial with giant optical activity
- Conjugated gammadion chiral metamaterial with uniaxial optical activity and negative refractive index
- Spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion in dielectric metasurfaces
- Comparison of Birefringent Metamaterials and Meanderline Structure as Quarter-Wave Plates at Terahertz Frequencies
- Metamaterial Polarization Converter Analysis: Limits of Performance
Cited by in corpus (3)
- Reconfigurable terahertz quarter-wave plate for helicity switching based on Babinet inversion of anisotropic checkerboard metasurface
- Dynamic quarter-wave metasurface for efficient helicity inversion of polarization beyond the single-layer conversion limit
- Broadband operation of active terahertz quarter-wave plate achieved with vanadium-dioxide-based metasurface switchable by current injection