Liquid-crystal-integrated metadevice: towards active multifunctional terahertz wave manipulations

Shen, Zhixiong; Zhou, Shenghang; Ge, Shi‐Jun; Duan, Wei; Chen, Peng; Wang, Lei; Hu, Wei; Lu, Yan‐qing

doi:10.1364/ol.43.004695

Cited by 63 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Hu and co‐workers proposed a type of LC‐integrated meta‐device that could achieve active and multifunctional manipulation of terahertz waves . The terahertz meta‐device had a sandwiched structure including Au comb electrodes, a LC layer and an array of metallic split rings.…”

Section: Beam Steering Based On Electromagnetic Metasurfacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terahertz Beam Steering Technologies: From Phased Arrays to Field‐Programmable Metasurfaces

Yang

Liu

et al. 2019

Advanced Optical Materials

194

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In past decades, terahertz radiation, which locates between microwave and far‐infrared light in the electromagnetic spectrum, has attracted more and more attention. Various passive and active components such as absorbers, filters, polarizers, and focusing lenses have been developed for manipulating terahertz radiation. With the further evolution of metamaterials and metasurfaces, unprecedented freedom is gained for flexibly controlling terahertz waves, including focusing, deflection, beam steering, polarization conversion, and generation of orbit angular momentum. Among them, terahertz beam steering has become the focus of considerable interest owing to its significance for wireless communication, high‐resolution imaging, and radar applications. In this paper, first the conventional terahertz beam steering technologies are reviewed, including mechanical scanning, phased array, frequency scanning antennas, and multibeam switching technology. Then, the reconfigurable metasurface routes based on semiconductor active components, phase transition materials, electrically tunable materials, and micro‐electromechanical technology are summarized and the respective performances for terahertz beam steering are discussed. Moreover, programmable metasurfaces with digitalized description of metasurfaces and real‐time manipulations of radiation patterns are also illustrated in detail. Finally, a summary of the present terahertz beam steering technologies is provided and an outlook for the future is discussed.

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Section: Beam Steering Based On Electromagnetic Metasurfacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terahertz Beam Steering Technologies: From Phased Arrays to Field‐Programmable Metasurfaces

Yang

Liu

et al. 2019

Advanced Optical Materials

194

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“…Beyond information displays, LC has also been employed in broad photonic applications, e.g., optical phased arrays, telecom components, and optical mode converters . Along with the emergence of large‐birefringence LCs and high‐transparency electrodes in THz regime, tunable filters, phase shifters, and waveplates were developed subsequently. Via further introducing the photopatterning technique, multifunctional geometric phase elements, such as vortex beam generators and spin‐selected lenses, were accomplished .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planar Terahertz Photonics Mediated by Liquid Crystal Polymers

Shen

Tang

Chen

et al. 2020

Advanced Optical Materials

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Terahertz (THz) band is expected to satisfy the ever‐increasing demand for high‐capacity wireless data transfer. Multifunctional photonic devices with compactness and low loss are highly pursued for future THz communications. Here, a strategy for planar THz photonics is proposed that enables free wavefront manipulation with submillimeter thin liquid crystal polymer (LCP) films. Such elements work on the spatial geometric phase modulation, which is accomplished by preprogramming the axis orientations of LCP. The LCP monomers follow the guidance of local photoalignment agent and are further polymerized under UV exposure at the existence of a doped photo‐initializer. Thanks to the high resolution and excellent flexibility of the photopatterning technique, THz elements with versatile functions can be realized. As examples, waveplates, polarization gratings, and lenses, which are suitable for the polarization control, beam deflecting, focusing, or collimating, are demonstrated. Due to the intrinsic flexibility of LCP films, an f‐tunable lens enabled by mechanically induced deformation is exhibited. Specific mode generators for vortices and Bessel beams are also presented, which can function as separate channels for the mode division multiplexing in THz communications. This work provides a robust platform for fabricating integrated, low‐loss, and tunable THz elements suitable for the advanced THz apparatuses.

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“…Compared to conventional bulky footprint devices realizing phase modulation through optical path accumulation, metasurface lenses [3,4] or ''metalenses" introduce an abrupt modulation of light wavefronts in two-dimensional (2D) space, composed of arrays of metallic or dielectric micro/nano-scatterers [3][4][5][6]. The rapid advancements in metasurfaces have led to considerable research on many novel photonic devices [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] and phenomena such as wave deflection [10][11][12][13], focusing [14][15][16] and imaging [17][18][19]. However, these proposed metasurface functions still pose the challenges of large chromatic aberrations and considerable losses [9,20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%