THz graphene-integrated metasurface for electrically reconfigurable polarization conversion

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) waves have been widely hailed as a key enabling technology for future sixth generation (6G) wireless networks. Dynamic modulation of their polarization states is of great attraction for high-capacity communications and anisotropic sensing. The development of such technology is, however, still in very early stage owing to the difficulties of realizing electrical reconfigurability for THz devices. Artificially constructed metasurfaces and new nanomaterials, such as graphene, have been shown to provide revolutionary platforms for manipulating and controlling the wave properties, especially at THz frequencies. This work leverages the light–matter interaction in a graphene-integrated metasurface functioning as an electrically reconfigurable THz polarization converter. A novel graphene-gold bilayer topology is applied to construct such a metasurface which enables wide-range electrical tunability of the polarization conversion. Under a y-polarized illumination, the reflected components of x- and y-polarizations are tuned dynamically through an external bias voltage across the metasurface, thereby producing an elliptically polarized wave with tuneable ellipticity and angle. By changing the voltage from 0 V to 12 V, the reflected polarization ellipticity has been tuned from −0.94 to −0.5 at around 240 GHz, featuring linear-to-circular and linear-to-elliptical polarization conversions. Meanwhile, the polarization angle has been modulated from 12° to −23° at around 236 GHz. This work provides an experimentally validated THz graphene-integrated metasurface with wide polarization modulation depths, low biasing voltages and simple configuration. It promises great potential for applications in future THz communications and sensing.

Keywords

• electrical modulation
• graphene
• metasurface
• polarization conversion
• terahertz