Abstract-Terahertz Spoof Surface Plasmonic Logic Gates

 

Mingrui Yuan, Qingwei Wang, Yanfeng Li, Yuehong Xu, Quan Xu, Xueqian Zhang, Xixiang Zhang, Jiaguang Han, Weili Zhang, 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004220308774

Logic gates are important components in integrated photonic circuitry. Here, a series of logic gates to achieve fundamental logic operations based on linear interference in spoof surface plasmon polariton waveguides are demonstrated at terahertz frequencies. A metasurface-based plasmonic source is adopted to couple free-space terahertz radiation into surface waves, followed by a funnel-shaped metasurface to efficiently couple the surface waves to the waveguides built on a domino structure. A single Mach-Zehnder waveguide interferometer can work as logic gates for four logic functions: AND, NOT, OR, and XOR. By cascading two such interferometers, NAND and NOR operations can also be achieved. Experimental investigations are supported by numerical simulations, and good agreement is obtained. The logic gates have compact sizes and high intensity contrasts for the output “1” and “0” states. More complicated functions can be envisioned and will be of great value for future terahertz integrated computing.

Abstract-Curved terahertz surface plasmonic waveguide devices

Mingrui Yuan, Yongchang Lu, Ying Zhang, Ziying Zhang, Yanfeng Li, Hongchao Liu, Xixiang Zhang, Jiaguang Han, Weili Zhang,

Structure and dispersion relation. (a) Schematic diagram and geometric parameters of the structure (the red arrow depicts the propagation direction of SPPs). The lower left inset shows the SEM image of the fabricated arc-shaped curved hole array excitation region as well as the fan-shaped coupling region. The lower right inset shows the fabricated waveguide structure. (b) The simulated dispersion relation (red line) of SPP mode for one row of metal pillars.

https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-28-2-1987

Strongly confined surface waves can be achieved on periodically structured metal surfaces and are known as spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). In this work, several terahertz SPP devices based on curved waveguides are demonstrated. The transmittance and bending loss of 90-degree curved spoof SPP waveguides with a radius of curvature ranging from 200 to 2300 µm are investigated to identify the regime for high transmission. A commutator is designed and experimentally demonstrated. Furthermore, coupling equations are derived and verified for efficient coupling between bend-straight waveguides and between bend-bend waveguides. The results will be of great value for future integrated terahertz plasmonic systems.

© 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

Abstract-High-performance and compact broadband terahertz plasmonic waveguide intersection

Mingrui Yuan, Yanfeng Li, Yongchang Lu, Ying Zhang, Ziying Zhang, Xueqian Zhang, Xixiang Zhang, Jiaguang Hah, Weili Zhang

THz plasmonic waveguides ...

iopscience.iop.org

https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/nanoph.2019.8.issue-10/nanoph-2019-0191/nanoph-2019-0191.pdf

For terahertz (THz) integrated systems, an intersection between waveguides is inevitable and is often accompanied by considerable crosstalk and loss. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel type of crossing with a footprint less than 0.2 × 0.2  mm2 for THz surface plasmon polariton waveguiding. With an optimized crossover structure, the measured loss of the intersection is as low as 0.89 dB/crossing, and the crosstalk is less than −19.06 dB/crossing at 0.55 THz. The proposed crossing structure is compact and has low loss and crosstalk within a broad band, which will pave the way for a wide range of new applications for THz integrated systems.

Abstract-Terahertz metamaterial beam splitters based on untraditional coding scheme

Xiaohua Xing, Yanfeng Li, Yongchang Lu, Wentao Zhang, Xixiang Zhang, Jiaguang Han, and Weili Zhang

 (a) Conventional coding “000111000111……/000111000111……” sequence, with “0” elements in blue and “1” elements in yellow. (b) Unconventional “offset” coding sequence. (c) Equivalent modeling of “offset” sequence. (d) Equivalent structure of “offset” sequence for (b). (e) Schematic diagram of θ and φ in the Cartesian coordinate system.

https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-27-20-A1627

Terahertz waves have attracted considerable research interest in recent years because of their potential applications in diverse fields. As an important device to control terahertz waves, beam splitters with greater flexibility and higher degrees of freedom are highly desirable. In order to obtain higher degrees of freedom in beam splitting, 2-bit or higher-bit coding elements are usually introduced into metamaterial beam splitters based on the coding theory. In this work, a new “offset” coding scheme using only the 1-bit coding elements of “0” and “1” is presented, and the period of coding for beam splitting can be a non-integer multiple of the length of a single unit rather than only its integer multiples. Therefore, more beam-splitting degrees of freedom can be obtained, and the design strategy is experimentally verified. We believe that the new coding scheme will also be of significance in radar cross section reduction and flexible wave control.

© 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

Abstract-Broadband terahertz rotator with an all-dielectric metasurface

Quanlong Yang, Xieyu Chen, Quan Xu, Chunxiu Tian, Yuehong Xu, Longqing Cong, Xueqian Zhang, Yanfeng Li, Caihong Zhang, Xixiang Zhang, Jiaguang Han, and Weili Zhang

Fig. 1. (a) Conceptual description of the metasurface based on two identical dielectric antennas to manipulate the polarization of the terahertz wave. 𝛼$\alpha$ and 𝛽$\beta$ represent the orientations of two dielectric antennas (marked by the orange arrows), and 𝛾$\gamma$ is the effective optical axis orientation from the superposition of two antennas (marked by the navy arrow). (b) Schematic illustration of the two silicon antennas with geometrical parameters 𝑊=45  μm$W=45\mathrm{\mu m}$, 𝐿=180  μm$L=180\mathrm{\mu m}$, 𝐻=200  μm$H=200\mathrm{\mu m}$, and period 𝑃=375  μm$P=375\mathrm{\mu m}$. (c),(d) Schematic diagrams for high-quality polarization generation. Without introducing the phase gradient, both the 𝑥$x$-polarized and 𝑦$y$-polarized light propagates in the normal direction forming dispersive polarization states within the frequency range of interest. The phase gradient enables spatial separation of the two orthogonal polarization components, giving rise to pure linearly polarized components within a broad frequency range.

https://www.osapublishing.org/prj/fulltext.cfm?uri=prj-6-11-1056&id=399205

Polarization manipulation is essential in developing cutting-edge photonic devices ranging from optical communication displays to solar energy harvesting. Most previous works for efficient polarization control cannot avoid utilizing metallic components that inevitably suffer from large ohmic loss and thus low operational efficiency. Replacing metallic components with Mie resonance-based dielectric resonators will largely suppress the ohmic loss toward high-efficiency metamaterial devices. Here, we propose an efficient approach for broadband, high-quality polarization rotation operating in transmission mode with all-dielectric metamaterials in the terahertz regime. By separating the orthogonal polarization components in space, we obtain rotated output waves with a conversion efficiency of 67.5%. The proposed polarization manipulation strategy shows impressive robustness and flexibility in designing metadevices of both linear- and circular-polarization incidences.

© 2018 Chinese Laser Press

Abstract-Terahertz polarization converter based on all-dielectric high birefringence metamaterial with elliptical air holes

Jianchen Zi, Quan Xu, Qiu Wang, Chunxiu Tian, Yanfeng Li, Xixiang Zhang, Jiaguang Han, Weili Zhang

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030401818301007

Metamaterials have been widely applied in the polarization conversion of terahertz (THz) waves. However, common plasmonic metamaterials usually work as reflective devices and have low transmissions. All-dielectric metamaterials can overcome these shortcomings. An all-dielectric metamaterial based on silicon with elliptical air holes is reported to achieve high artificial birefringence at THz frequencies. Simulations show that with appropriate structural parameters the birefringence of the dielectric metamaterial can remain flat and is above 0.7 within a broad band. Moreover, the metamaterial can be designed as a broadband quarter wave plate. A sample metamaterial was fabricated and tested to prove the validity of the simulations, and the sample could work as a quarter wave plate at 1.76 THz. The all-dielectric metamaterial that we proposed is of great significance for high performance THz polarization converters.

Abstract-Terahertz spoof surface-plasmon-polariton subwavelength waveguide

Ying Zhang, Yuehong Xu, Chunxiu Tian, Quan Xu, Xueqian Zhang, Yanfeng Li, Xixiang Zhang, Jiaguang Han, and Weili Zhang

https://www.osapublishing.org/prj/abstract.cfm?uri=prj-6-1-18&origin=search

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) with the features of subwavelength confinement and strong enhancements have sparked enormous interest. However, in the terahertz regime, due to the perfect conductivities of most metals, it is hard to realize the strong confinement of SPPs, even though the propagation loss could be sufficiently low. One main approach to circumvent this problem is to exploit spoof SPPs, which are expected to exhibit useful subwavelength confinement and relative low propagation loss at terahertz frequencies. Here we report the design, fabrication, and characterization of terahertz spoof SPP waveguides based on corrugated metal surfaces. The various waveguide components, including a straight waveguide, an S-bend waveguide, a Y-splitter, and a directional coupler, were experimentally demonstrated using scanning near-field terahertz microscopy. The proposed waveguide indeed enables propagation, bending, splitting, and coupling of terahertz SPPs and thus paves a new way for the development of flexible and compact plasmonic circuits operating at terahertz frequencies.

© 2017 Chinese Laser Press

Abstract-Polarization-independent all-silicon dielectric metasurfaces in the terahertz regime

Huifang Zhang, Xueqian Zhang, Quan Xu, Qiu Wang, Yuehong Xu, Minggui Wei, Yanfeng Li, Jianqiang Gu, Zhen Tian, Chunmei Ouyang, Xixiang Zhang, Cong Hu, Jiaguang Han, and Weili Zhang

https://www.osapublishing.org/prj/abstract.cfm?uri=prj-6-1-24&origin=search

Dielectric metasurfaces have achieved great success in realizing high-efficiency wavefront control in the optical and infrared ranges. Here, we experimentally demonstrate several efficient, polarization-independent, all-silicon dielectric metasurfaces in the terahertz regime. The metasurfaces are composed of cylindrical silicon pillars on a silicon substrate, which can be easily fabricated using etching technology for semiconductors. By locally tailoring the diameter of the pillars, full control over abrupt phase changes can be achieved. To show the controlling ability of the metasurfaces, an anomalous deflector, three Bessel beam generators, and three vortex beam generators are fabricated and characterized. We also show that the proposed metasurfaces can be easily combined to form composite devices with extended functionalities. The proposed controlling method has promising applications in developing low-loss, ultra-compact spatial terahertz modulation devices.

© 2017 Chinese Laser Press

Abstract-Polarization-controlled asymmetric excitation of surface plasmons

Quan Xu, Xueqian Zhang, Quanlong Yang, Chunxiu Tian, Yuehong Xu, Jianbing Zhang, Hongwei Zhao, Yanfeng Li, Chunmei Ouyang, Zhen Tian, Jianqiang Gu, Xixiang Zhang, Jiaguang Han, and Weili Zhang

https://www.osapublishing.org/optica/abstract.cfm?uri=optica-4-9-1044&origin=search

Free-space light can be coupled into propagating surface waves at a metal–dielectric interface, known as surface plasmons (SPs). This process has traditionally faced challenges in preserving the incident polarization information and controlling the directionality of the excited SPs. The recently reported polarization-controlled asymmetric excitation of SPs in metasurfaces has attracted much attention for its promise in developing innovative plasmonic devices. However, the unit elements in these works were purposely designed in certain orthogonal polarizations, i.e., linear or circular polarizations, resulting in limited two-level polarization controllability. Here, we introduce a coupled-mode theory to overcome this limit. We demonstrated theoretically and experimentally that, by utilizing the coupling effect between a pair of split-ring-shaped slit resonators, exotic asymmetric excitation of SPs can be obtained under the 𝑥$x$-, 𝑦$y$-, left-handed circular, and right-handed circular polarization incidences, while the polarization information of the incident light can be preserved in the excited SPs. The versatility of the presented design scheme would offer opportunities for polarization sensing and polarization-controlled plasmonic devices.

© 2017 Optical Society of America