Mechanically Tunable Terahertz Circular Polarizer with Versatile Functions

Circular polarizers that selectively transmit only one handedness of circular polarization are useful for imaging and wireless communications. Conventional circular polarizers involve 3D chiral structures, which impose fabrication challenges, while typically introducing chirality within a limited bandwidth. To overcome the limitations associated with conventional non-planar designs, a three-layer metasurface-based planar circular polarizer exhibiting strong and broadband chirality is presented here. Its superiority over existing multilayer designs is derived from a systematic design procedure. Measurement results reveal that the proposed structure maintains a 15-dB extinction ratio from 251 to 293 GHz for the preferred handedness of circular polarization, leading to a fractional bandwidth of 15.4% with a transmission efficiency above 92.7%. Furthermore, the proposed structure is mechanically tunable to alter its functionality or operation bandwidth. Specifically, through simply rotating the top or bottom metallic layer by 90°, the structure can function as a transmissive quasi-half-wave plate that reverses the sense of circular polarization. Moreover, the presented structure can operate at nearby frequency ranges for the aforementioned functionalities by mechanically adjusting the air gap spacings between the metallic layers. Further calculations based on the measured results of each layer suggest that the proposed structure is robust to deviations in the air gap spacings.