Circular dichroism-like response of terahertz wave caused by phase manipulation via all-silicon metasurface

Chiral metasurfaces based on asymmetric meta-atoms have achieved artificial circular dichroism (CD), spin-dependent wavefront control, near-field imaging, and other spin-related electromagnetic control. In this paper, we propose and experimentally verify a scheme for achieving high-efficiency chiral response similar to CD of terahertz (THz) wave via phase manipulation. By introducing the geometric phase and dynamic phase in an all-silicon metasurface, the spin-decoupled terahertz transmission is obtained. The giant circular dichroism-like effect in the transmission spectrum is observed by using a random phase distribution for one of the circular polarization components. More importantly, the effect can be adjusted when we change the area of the metasurface illuminated by an incident terahertz beam. In addition, we also demonstrate the spin-dependent arbitrary wavefront control of the transmitted terahertz wave, in which one of the circularly polarized components is scattered, while the other forms a focused vortex beam. Simulated and experimental results show that this method provides a new idea for spin selective control of THz waves. (C) 2021 Chinese Laser Press.

Automated summary

This study achieves high-efficiency chiral response of terahertz waves by introducing geometric and dynamic phases in an all-silicon metasurface, leading to a giant circular dichroism-like effect and spin-dependent arbitrary wavefront control of the transmitted terahertz waves.