Highly Transparent and Polarization-Maintained Terahertz Plasmonic Metamaterials Based on Metal-Wire-Woven Hole Arrays: Fundamentals and Characterization of Transmission Spectral Peaks

Abstract

Metal-hole-supported terahertz (THz) waves through the structure of a metal-wire-woven hole array (MWW-HA) present high-frequency-passed transmittance spectra of one plasmonic metamaterial with artificial plasmonic frequencies, which are inversely proportional to metal-hole widths. For the transmitted THz waves of MWW-HA, transverse-electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) waveguide modes mix within a symmetric metal-hole boundary. THz resonance waves transversely crossing the holes of MWW-HA are experimentally characterized with spectral peaks in the frequency range of 0.1–2 THz that are correlated with aperture sizes, unit-cell-hole widths, metal-wire thicknesses, and wire-bending angles. The metal-hole-transported resonance waves of MWW-HA are dominated by TE waveguide modes instead of TM ones because a hole width of MWW-HA is approximate to the half wavelength of a resonance wave. The round metal edges of the woven metal wires can minimize the effective optical length of a thick metal hole to transmit THz resonance waves, thereby resulting the smallest rotation angle of linear polarization and high transmittance up to 0.94. An MWW-HA structure is therefore reliable for supporting metal-hole resonance waves with low resistance, whereas a metal-slab-perforated hole array cannot achieve the same result.

Keywords

• artificial material
• waveguide mode
• plasmonic metamaterial
• periodic metal structure
• terahertz radiation
• submillimeter wave