Metal–Graphene Hybrid Chiral Metamaterials for Tunable Circular Dichroism

In the field of optoelectronics, circular dichroism (CD) has caused great research interest because it is widely used in imaging and biosensing. A new method for dynamically controlling terahertz (THz) CD in metamaterials is proposed. By introducing chirality and graphene to metamaterials, a pair of chiral structures with completely opposite responses to left-handed circularly polarized (LCP) waves and right-handed circularly polarized (RCP) waves are designed. The influencing factors of CD are explored, including the gap of the structure, the linewidth of graphene, and the Fermi level of graphene. The largest CD (ΔR) is 77%. The CD can be actively modulated in a modulation range of 39–77% and the modulation depth is up to 38%. In addition, two-channel and four-channel chiral metasurfaces for near-field imaging are designed in this way. Good imaging effects and on (“1”) or off (“0”) effects of the multichannel metasurface are demonstrated. This work provides new ideas for the design of tunable metasurfaces and promotes the application of metasurfaces in THz dynamic imaging.     

Manipulating Spin-Dependent Wavefronts of Vortex Beams via Plasmonic Metasurfaces

Conventional metasurfaces based on geometric phase are constrained to spin-locked phase profile, resulting in mirrored functionalities for different spins. A single flat device that enables independent manipulation of wavefronts in two orthogonal circularly polarized channels is of paramount importance in wireless and optical communications. In this work, by tuning the dimension and rotation angle of H-shaped meta-atoms to synthesize propagating phase and geometric phase, spin-dependent plasmonic metasurfaces are presented to manipulate circularly polarized waves in the visible band. To verify the capability of spin-dependent wavefront manipulation, three metasurfaces are implemented. The first metasurface generates vortex beams with orbital angular momentum (OAM) l = 1 under left-handed circularly polarized (LCP) incidence and l = 2 under right-handed circularly polarized (RCP) incidence. By introducing convolution operation, the second metasurface is capable of producing vortex beams with different OAMs and different directions for two spins. The third metasurface produces dual-beam and quad-beam with different OAMs for different circular polarizations. This scheme can provide a new pathway in ultracompact nanophotonic devices and systems.     

Switchable vortex beam polarization state terahertz multi-layer metasurface

We propose a switchable vortex beam polarization state terahertz multi-layer metasurface, which consists of three-layer elliptical metal crosses, four-layer dielectrics, and two-layer hollow metal circles, which are alternately superimposed. Under the normal incidence of left-handed circularly polarized (LCP) wave and the right-handed circularly polarized (RCP) waves, the proposed structure realizes three independent control functions, i.e., focused and vortex beam, vortex beam with different topological charges, and polarization states switching, and azimuth switching of two vortex beams with different polarization states. The results show that the proposed metasurface provides a new idea for investigating the multifunctional terahertz wave modulation devices.     

FDTD Analysis of Electromagnetic Reflection by Conductive Plane Covered with Magnetized Inhomogeneous Plasmas

A novel finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methodology which incorporates both anisotropy and frequency dispersion at the same time is developed for electromagnetic wave propagation in anisotropic magnetoactive plasmas in this paper. The numerical verification of the method are confirmed by computing the reflection and transmission of right-handed/left-handed circularly polarized (RCP/LCP) wave through a magnetized plasma layer, with the direction of propagation parallel to the direction of the biasing field. And, the right-handed / left-handed polarized wave reflection coefficients for electromagnetic signals normally incident upon a conductive plane covered with a layer of magnetized plasma are computed using the new FDTD method. The parabolic electron-number density profile varies only in the direction perpendicular to the plane. The function dependence of reflection coefficients on the number density, collision frequency and external magnetic field is studied.     

基于复合超构表面的宽带圆极化双功能器件设计

多功能器件的设计是推动新一代电磁系统发展的重要力量,而超构表面因其对电磁波的幅度、相位和极化等特性的灵活调控在多功能器件领域备受关注.传统的多功能超构表面是利用各向异性单元对相互正交的线极化波具有不同响应的特性,从而设计出适用于线极化的多功能器件.本文提出了一种缝隙加载的环I形复合超构表面单元,通过单元臂长和旋转角度的调整实现了对圆极化电磁波传输和几何相位的独立控制.利用上述两种相位的共同作用,打破了左旋和右旋圆极化电磁波操控中存在的固有关系,为圆极化双功能器件的设计提供了新的思路.在此基础上,利用复合超构表面分别设计了异面偏折器和定向/涡旋光束产生器,实验结果表明,本文设计的两种反射型圆极化双功能器件在9—13 GHz的宽频带范围内均能良好工作.     

Asymmetrical photonic spin Hall effect based on dielectric metasurfaces

The photonic spin Hall effect has attracted considerable research interest due to its potential applications in spin-controlled nanophotonic devices. However, realization of the asymmetrical photonic spin Hall effect with a single optical element is still a challenge due to the conjugation of the Pancharatnam-Berry phase, which reduces the flexibility in various applications. Here, we demonstrate an asymmetrical spin-dependent beam splitter based on a single-layer dielectric metasurface exhibiting strong and controllable optical response. The metasurface consists of an array of dielectric nanofins, where both varying rotation angles and feature sizes of the unit cells are utilized to create high-efficiency dielectric metasurfaces, which enables to break the conjugated characteristic of phase gradient. Thanks to the superiority of the phase modulation ability, when the fabricated metasurface is under normal incidence with a wavelength of 1550 nm, the left-handed circular polarization (LCP) light exhibits an anomalous refraction angle of 28.9°, while the right-handed circular polarization (RCP) light transmits directly. The method we proposed can be used for the flexible manipulation of spin photons and has potentials in high efficiency metasurfaces with versatile functionalities, especially with metasurfaces in a compact space.     

Multi-band giant circular dichroism based on conjugated bilayer twisted-semicircle nanostructure at optical frequency

Plasmonic circular dichroism (CD) effect has been drawn great attention increasingly for its wide application in the fields of bio-sensing, biological detection, pharmaceuticals, and analytical chemistry. In this paper, we propose a chiral metasurface (CMS) to achieve strong multi-band CD effect at optical frequency. The designed CMS is composed of a periodic array of conjugated bilayer twisted-semicircle nanostructures. The numerical simulation results show that the CMS can produce strong multi-band CD effect due to the different coupling resonance modes under the excitations of left-handed circular polarization (LCP) light and right-handed circular polarization (RCP) light. It is shown that the chiral-selective absorption peaks can reach 89.4% and 95% for LCP light, 79% and 78.2% for RCP light, and the maximum CD is about 0.69 and −0.61 at 198.75 THz and 352.25 THz, 0.69 and −0.54 at 291.75 THz and 402.25 THz, respectively. The mechanism of the giant CD effect of the CSM has been revealed by analyzing the coupling mode of electric dipoles on the top and bottom layer through surface current distributions. Furthermore, the geometric parameter dependences of CD effect in the proposed CMS have been also studied numerically. The present results will guide the design of plasmonic chiral nanostructures for enhancing the CD effect.     

Chiral mirror and optical resonator designs for circularly polarized light: suppression of cross-polarized reflectances and transmittances

A left-handed chiral sculptured thin film (STF) that reflects strongly at the wavelength of the circular Bragg resonance tends to partially convert the handedness of incident LCP (left-circularly-polarized) light to RCP (right-circularly-polarized). We show that the cross-polarized component of the reflected RCP beam can be eliminated by interference with an additional RCP beam that is reflected at the interface of an isotropic cover and an AR (antireflecting) layer. For best results the refractive index and thickness of the AR layer need to accommodate a phase change on reflection that occurs at the chiral film. Effective suppression of the reflectances R_RR, R_RL, R_LR and the transmittances T_RL, T_LR can be achieved by sandwiching the chiral reflector between such amplitude and phase-matched AR coatings. Co-polarized chiral reflectors of this type may form efficient handed optical resonators. For LCP light the optical properties of such a handed resonator are formally the same as the properties of the isotropic passive or active Fabry–Perot resonators, but the handed resonator is transparent to RCP light.     

磁化分层等离子体中电磁波传播特性研究

采用混合矩阵法,分析了磁化分层等离子鞘套对斜入射电磁波传播特性的影响,分别计算了不同入射角以及外加磁场下电磁波透射系数和极化特性的变化。以GPS导航信号右旋圆极化波(RCP)为例,研究了磁场、电子密度对电磁波右旋圆极化特性的影响。结果表明,外加磁场能够使右旋圆极化波在等离子体中的阻带向高频方向移动,此外,外加磁场能在一定程度上改善斜入射是圆极化波的极化特性,有利于GPS信号接收。     

Circular polarization converters based on bi-layered asymmetrical split ring metamaterials

In this paper, a kind of bi-layered asymmetrical split ring metamaterial was proposed as a circular polarization converter. Simulations and experiments at the microwave regime showed that the proposed structures can achieve the conversions from right-handed circularly polarized electromagnetic waves to left-handed ones and the reversed conversions in the opposite propagating direction. The linear to circular polarization transmission coefficients and the surface currents were investigated to understand the mechanism of the circular polarization conversions. Moreover, we optimized the proposed metamaterials by increasing the distance between the two metal layers. The proposed circular polarization converters have applications in microwave wave plates and metamaterial antennas.     

Comb-Channels of Left–Right-Handed Circular Polarizations from Coupled Resonators

In order to obtain multi-channels of left–right-handed circular polarizations, we design a structure with coupled magnetic resonators and study its transmission properties using the tight-binding model and the 4×4 transfer matrix method. The incidence of a linearly polarized light can be split into two groups of resonant peaks. One group corresponds left-handed circular polarization and the other group corresponds to right-handed circular polarization. By properly adjusted magnetization, the two group can be merged into one group, in which the channels of left-handed circular polarization and right-handed circular polarization are alternately arranged in the transmission spectrum. Thus, we can obtain the comb-channels of left–right-handed circular polarizations.     

圆极化波反射聚焦超表面

基于圆极化波入射条件下的高效同极化反射超表面实现了对圆极化反射波相位的自由调控, 设计了一维圆极化波反射聚焦超表面. 在中心频率f=16 GHz附近, 右旋圆极化平面波入射时, 反射波聚焦于焦距L=200 mm的实焦点; 左旋圆极化波入射时, 反射波近似聚焦于焦距L=-200 mm的虚焦点. 仿真计算得到聚焦波束的波束宽度、焦深. 结果表明, 这种圆极化反射聚焦超表面具有很好的聚焦效果, 同时具有长焦深和宽带特性.     

Strong chirality in twisted bilayer α-MoO3

Chiral structures are promising in many applications, such as biological sensing and analytical chemistry, and have been extensively explored. In this paper, we theoretically investigate the chiral response of twisted bilayer α-MoO₃. Firstly, the analytical formula for the transmissivity is derived when the structure is illuminated with circularly polarized plane waves. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the twisted bilayer α-MoO₃ can excite the strong chirality with the maximum circular dichroism (CD) of 0.89. In this case, the chirality is due to the simultaneous breaking the rotational symmetry and mirror symmetry, which originates from the relative rotation of two α-MoO₃ layers. To better understand the physical mechanism, the polarization conversion between the left-hand circular polarization (LCP) and right-hand circular polarization (RCP) waves is discussed as well. Moreover, it is found that the structure can maintain the strong chirality (CD> 0.8) when the twisted angle varies from 69° to 80°, which effectively reduces the strictness in the requirement for rotation angle. In addition, the CD can be larger than 0.85 when the incidence angle of circularly polarized plane wave is less than 40°, implying that the chirality is robust against the angle of incidence. Our work not only provides an insight into chirality induced by the twisted bilayer α-MoO₃, but also looks forward to applications in biological sensing.     

Simultaneous acquisition of all four forms of circular polarization Raman optical activity: results for α‐pinene and lysozyme

A new circularly polarized (CP) Raman spectrometer is described that demonstrates simultaneous acquisition of all four forms of circular polarization Raman optical activity (ROA). The instrument is a design extension of a commercially available back scattering circular polarization (SCP) ROA spectrometer. Circular polarization of the incident beam is introduced with a quarter‐wave plate, and a half‐wave plate alternately positioned in and out of the beam controls the modulation between right circular polarization (RCP) or left circular polarization (LCP) states. Combining this modulation with the simultaneous detection of RCP and LCP scattered Raman radiation allows the measurement of incident circular polarization (ICP), SCP, in‐phase dual circular polarization(DCP_I) and out‐of‐phase DCP_II‐ROA. In addition, three different forms of backscattered Raman spectra, namely unpolarized, highly polarized, and depolarized Raman spectra, as well as a degree of circularity spectrum are obtained. The performance of the new all‐CP ROA spectrometer is evaluated with neat α‐pinene and aqueous hen lysozyme solution. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An ultra-wideband coding polarizer for beam control and RCS reduction

Pancharatnam−Berry (PB) phase metasurface, as a special class of gradient metasurfaces, has been paid much attention owing to the robust performance for phase control of circularly polarized waves. Herein, we present an element-based polarizer for the first step, which enables the incident electromagnetic waves into the cross-polarized waves with the relative bandwidth of 71%, and the polarization conversion ratio exceeds 90% at 6.9−14.5 GHz. Then an eight-elements coding polarizer based on the PB phase is presented for the applications on beam control and radar cross section reduction. The simulated values indicate that the reduction of radar cross section is more than 10 dB at 6−16 GHz. Our work reveals the availability of manipulating the waves, beamforming in communication systems and electromagnetic stealth, and so on.     

Frequency Reconfigurable and Multifunctional Metastructure Regulated by Nematic Liquid Crystal: Broadband Circular to Linear Polarization Converter

With the tunability of the nematic liquid crystal (NLC), a broadband frequency reconfigurable and versatile metastructure (MS) is proposed and theoretically investigated in this paper, combining circular-to-linear (CTL) polarization conversion (PC) and circular-to-circular (CTC) PC simultaneously. The MS is composed of two via-coupled modules, which can respond differently to the incident waves. Each module is connected utilizing a metal via a column, thus exceedingly enhancing the energy transmission and reducing the loss when transmitting. When the applied bias voltage (V_bias) is 0 V, the NCL molecules follow the initial orientation. The MS converts the incident right circular polarized (RCP) waves into linear polarized (LP) waves within 8.11–9.95 gigahertz (GHz) with a relative bandwidth of 20.38% and achieves the PC of left circular polarized (LCP) into RCP waves. As the V_bias reaches 20 V, the original operating interval reconfigures and shifts overall toward a lower frequency. The bandwidth of CTL is 7.66–9.02 GHz, and the CTC PC is broadened to 20.20%. Meanwhile, the structure justification is verified, and the inducing mechanism of PC is expounded. Possessing the merits of versatile collaborative processing and wide operating bands, such an MS is promising to be a polarization-controlled application candidate and enrich multifunctional designs.     

基于蘑菇型结构的双入射超宽带复合媒质材料设计与分析

通过设计一定的单元结构, 可以实现超宽带人工电磁材料. 基于蘑菇型金属结构, 提出了一种同时具有左右手通带无缝结合的超宽带双入射型复合媒质材料结构单元. 该结构由嵌入到介质板的两个反向对称的蘑菇型金属结构组成, 能够同时引发电谐振和磁谐振而得到左手通带. 通过利用CST软件仿真、等效电磁参数提取、折射率计算以及建立等效磁谐振电路模型等方法, 分析验证了该结构的双入射特性和左手特性. 仿真结果表明, 在电磁波垂直于介质板和平行于介质板入射两种情况下, 在X波段均表现出左手通带特性, 并具有1 GHz以上的左手带宽. 当电磁波垂直于介质板入射时, 在7.2 GHz-9.3 GHz频段为右手通带, 在9.3 GHz-11 GHz频段为左手通带; 当电磁波平行于介质板入射时, 在7.0 GHz-9.0 GHz频段为右手通带, 在9.0 GHz-10 GHz频段为左手通带. 在两种情况下分别于9.3 GHz与9.0 GHz处得到了零折射率, 从而构造了一种正-零-负复合媒质材料, 实现了具有3 GHz带宽的双入射超宽带平衡结构.     

Electromagnetic envelope solitons in magnetized plasma

A multiple scales technique is employed to solve the fluid-Maxwell equations describing a weakly nonlinear circularly polarized electromagnetic pulse in magnetized plasma. A nonlinear Schrödinger-type (NLS) equation is shown to govern the amplitude of the vector potential. The conditions for modulational instability and for the existence of various types of localized envelope modes are investigated in terms of relevant parameters. Right-hand circularly polarized (RCP) waves are shown to be modulationally unstable regardless of the value of the ambient magnetic field and propagate as bright-type solitons. The same is true for left-hand circularly polarized (LCP) waves in a weakly to moderately magnetized plasma. In other parameter regions, LCP waves are stable in strongly magnetized plasmas and may propagate as dark-type solitons (electric field holes). The evolution of envelope solitons is analyzed numerically, and it is shown that solitons propagate in magnetized plasma without any essential change in amplitude and shape.     

左手系材料界面上的非线性TE电磁波

针对电磁波在非线性左手系材料中的传播性质, 分别研究了左、右手系材料界面以及两左手系材料界面上非线性TE表面波的传播行为讨论了导波的频率特性、色散关系以及群速度随频率的变化规律分析表明，两种界面上的非线性TE表面波均存在频率通带和禁带，且带宽是传播功率的函数揭示了在一定条件下，左、右手系材料界面上既可以支持正向传播的非线性TE表面波，也可以支持反向传播的非线性TE表面波；两左手系材料界面上表面波的传播性质因材料参量的变化差异较大，一定参量条件下，该界面上仅支持反向传播的非线性TE表面波.     

二维宽带相位梯度超表面设计及实验验证

针对圆极化波, 通过同极化反射超表面结构单元的空间排布, 设计实现了一种二维非色散高效相位梯度超表面. 同极化反射相位可以通过同极化反射超表面结构单元金属线的面内旋转来自由调控. 实现的相位梯度超表面可对左右旋入射波产生相反的相位梯度. 当线极化波入射到超表面上时, 反射波被分为两束向相反方向传播的圆极化波. 仿真了线极化波垂直入射时的反射功率密度谱, 仿真结果与理论上设计的异常反射方向一致. 制作了厚度为2 mm的超表面样品, 测试了其镜面反射率曲线. 实验结果表明, 线极化波垂直入射时, 超表面在9.5-19.0 GHz的镜面反射率降至-5 dB以下.