Terahertz chiral metamaterial based on complementary U-shaped structure assembly

A complementary Y-shaped chiral metamaterial (CYCMM) is proposed for the realization of giant optical activity and circular polarization with strong circular dichroism (CD) simultaneously for terahertz (THz) waves. It is demonstrated that the proposed CYCMM can achieve 90° linear polarization rotation around 2.13 THz and a giant CD effect at 2.38 THz through full-wave simulations. The mechanism of the giant CD effect and optical activity is illustrated by simulated surface current distribution. Due to strong optical activity and the CD effect, the proposed CYCMM is useful for the development of integrated terahertz spectroscopic and imaging devices.

In this paper, a multi-band chiral metamaterials (CMMs) based on complementary cross-wire structure is proposed and studied numerically. The finite element method (FEM) method was used to simulate the EM properties of the designed structure. Numerical results indicate that the giant optical activity and multiband negative refractive index can be realized in terahertz region. The proposed CMMs may have some potential applications in novel terahertz device.Particle size of bayerite (d50) was about 24 μm. Al2O3was obtained after calcination at 1050 °C for 1.5 h.

There has been a considerable effort recently in the development of planar chiral metamaterials. Owing to the lack of inversion symmetry, these materials have been shown to display interesting physical properties such as negative index of refraction and giant optical activity. However, the biosensing capabilities of these chiral metamaterials have not been fully explored. Ultrasensitive detection and structural characterization of proteins adsorbed on chiral plasmonic substrates was demonstrated recently using UV-visible circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. Second harmonic generation microscopy is an extremely sensitive nonlinear optical probe to investigate the chirality of biomaterials. In this study, we characterize the chiral response of chiral plasmonic metamaterials using second harmonic generation microscopy and CD spectroscopy. These planar chiral metamaterials, fabricated by electron-beam lithography, consist of right-handed and left-handed gold gammadions of length 400 nm and thickness 100nm, deposited on a glass substrate and arranged in a square lattice with a periodicity of 800nm.

We propose a new uniaxial chiral metamaterial which is composed of four crescent shaped split-ring resonators mutually twisted by 90° and patterned on opposite sides of a dielectric substrate. It illustrates a strong optical activity and circular dichroism in the range from 5 GHz to 10 GHz. The presented design can be fabricated more easily due to its efficient metallic structures. Furthermore, chirality value of this proposed chiral metamaterial is large enough the optical applications. This study also shows that the proposed crescent shaped chiral metamaterials have good responses when compared with other studied samples in literature. All validations are performed by computer simulation program CST Microwave Studio in the 5–10 GHz frequency range.

Ultra-narrowband circular dichroism in all-dielectric chiral nanohole arrays based on griddings and monolayer MoS2

In this paper, we propose a new structure which is achieved via the combination of twist conjugated gammadion and four-L resonators pairs. The proposed chiral metamaterial can achieve dispersionless and giant optical activity simultaneously. The polarization ellipticity is lower than 0.46° through all function bands, and the polarization azimuth rotation angle is larger than 90.3° from 2.37 to 2.69 THz. Specifically, the structure can achieve 90° dispersionless polarization rotation at f = 2.57 THz. The optical activity is optimized through changing the parameters of the chiral structure and the physical mechanism is also analyzed based on surface current distribution.

Terahertz angle-insensitive 90° polarization rotator using chiral metamaterial

In this article, recent progress and development of terahertz chiral metamaterials including stereometamaterials are thoroughly reviewed. This review mainly focuses on the fundamental principles of design and arrangement of meta-atoms in metamaterials exhibiting chirality with various asymmetry and symmetry and 2D and 3D configuration. Related optical and propagation properties in chiral metamaterials, such as optical activity, circular dichroism, and negative refraction for each different chiral metamaterials, are compared and investigated. Finally, comparison between chiral metamaterials with stereometamaterials in terms of the polarization selective operation along with the similarity and the distinction is addressed as well.

In recent years, considerable research has been carried out relative to the electromagnetic (EM) propagation and refraction characteristics in metamaterials with emphasis on the origins of negative refractive index. Negative refractive index may be introduced in metamaterials via different methods; one such is the con- dition whereby the Poynting vector of the EM wave is in opposition to the group velocity in the material. Alternatively, negative refractive index also occurs when the group and phase velocities in the medium are in opposition. The latter phenomenon has been extensively investigated in the literature, including recent work involving chiral metamaterials with material dispersion up to the first order. This paper examines the pos- sible emergence of negative refractive index in dispersive chiral metamaterials with material dispersion up to the second order. The motivation is to determine if using second- as opposed to first-order dispersion may lead to more practical negative index behavior. A spectral approach combined with a slowly time-varying phasor analy- sis is applied, leading to the analytic derivation of EM phase and group velocities, and the resulting phase and group velocities and the corresponding phase and group indices are evaluated by selecting somewhat arbitrary dispersive parameters. The results indicate the emergence of negative index (via negative phase indices along with positive group indices, as reported in the literature) or negative index material (NIM) behavior over infor- mation bandwidths in the low RF range. The second-order results are not significantly better than those for first-order results based on the theoretical analysis; however, greater parametric flexibility exists for the second-order system leading to the higher likelihood of achieving NIM over practical frequency bands. The velocities and indices computed using the Lorentzian and Condon models yield an NIM bandwidth around 200 − 400 Mrad∕sec, about 2 orders of magnitude higher than that for the parametric approach; more impor- tantly, NIM is found not to occur in the first order when using practical models. © 2015 Society of Photo-Optical

Chiral metamaterials represent a special type of artificial structures that cannot be superposed to their mirror images. Due to the lack of mirror symmetry, cross-coupling between electric and magnetic fields exist in chiral mediums and present unique electromagnetic characters of circular dichroism and optical activity, which provide a new opportunity to tune polarization and realize negative refractive index. Chiral metamaterials have attracted great attentions in recent years and have given rise to a series of applications in polarization manipulation, imaging, chemical and biological detection, and nonlinear optics. Here we review the fundamental theory of chiral media and analyze the construction principles of some typical chiral metamaterials. Then, the progress in extrinsic chiral metamaterials, absorbing chiral metamaterials, and reconfigurable chiral metamaterials are summarized. In the last section, future trends in chiral metamaterials and application in nonlinear optics are introduced.

Tunable optical activity in chiral metamaterials is demonstrated in simulation and shows actively tunable giant polarization rotation over a wide frequency band.

A tunable dual-band asymmetric transmission metasurface with strong circular dichroism in the terahertz communication band

The chiral structures with strong circular dichroism (CD) response and narrow linewidth are desirable in chiral sensing, circularly-polarized light detection, and polarization imaging. Here, we theoretically proposed a hybrid chiral metasurface for differential absorption of circularly polarized light. Based on the multiple resonant modes coupling effect in a two-dimensional dielectric slab, it is realizable then to achieve a nearly perfect absorption for right circularly polarized light and simultaneously reflects 90% of left circularly polarized light, suggesting the generation of strong CD of 0.886 within a narrowly spectral linewidth of 4.53 nm. The multipole analysis reveals that the electric dipole, the magnetic dipole, and the electric quadrupole make dominant contributions to chiral absorption and the high CD response in this metsurface. The excitation of guided mode resonance enhances the ability of this metasurface to absorb electric field. Moreover, the optical chirality response can be further manipulated through the geometry features. These findings pave a powerful way to realize the narrowing and strong CD platform for single-band and multiband chirality behaviors.

This paper provides a theoretical investigation of negative refraction and focusing of elastic guided waves in a free-standing plate with a step-like thickness change. Under certain conditions, a positive phase velocity (forward) Lamb mode can be converted into a negative phase velocity (backward) mode at such interface, giving rise to negative refraction. A semi-analytical model is developed in order to study the influence of various parameters such as the material Poisson's coefficient, the step-like thickness, the frequency and the incidence angle. To this end, all the Lamb and shear horizontal propagating modes, but also a large number of their inhomogeneous and evanescent counterpart,s are taken into account. The boundary conditions applied to the stress-displacement fields at the thickness step yields an equation system. Its inversion provides the transmission and reflection coefficients between each mode at the interface. The step-like thickness and Poisson's ratio are shown to be key parameters to optimize the negative refraction process. In terms of material, Duralumin is found to be optimal as it leads to a nearly perfect conversion between forward and backward modes over broad frequency and angular ranges. An excellent focusing ability is thus predicted for a flat lens made of two symmetric thickness steps. Theoretical results are confirmed by a numerical FDTD simulation and experimental measurements made on an optimized Duralumin flat lens by means of laser interferometry. This theoretical study paves the way towards the optimization of elastic devices based on negative refraction, in particular for cloaking or super-focusing purposes.

A perfect lens made from negative refraction (NR) materials is utilized to overcome the diffraction limit. However, these NR lenses are realized by metamaterials, which suffer from high losses, and the volume is bulky. In this Letter, we propose a terahertz NR lens by using a four-wave mixing (FWM) process in graphene. NR is demonstrated because of the phase matching along the surface of graphene. Evanescent waves that store high spatial frequency information can be converted into propagating waves in the nonlinear NR process. An image with subwavelength resolution is reconstructed at the FWM wavelength. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the capability of such imaging. The lens has a subwavelength resolution of around λ/5. The lens needs low field intensity due to the strong nonlinear response of graphene in the terahertz frequency. This Letter may have applications in terahertz microscopy.