Multifunctional metasurface for Terahertz wavefront manipulation based on the combination of vanadium dioxide and graphene

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a multifunctional wavefront control metasurface based on vanadium dioxide (VO2) and graphene. The unit cell structure contains a VO2 substrate, three rectangular metal strips as the bottom layer, orthogonal graphene strips as the top layer, and an intermediate layer consisting of a split ring resonator and circular metal patches. The desired performances can be achieved by changing the parameters of the split ring resonator in the middle layer, as well as controlling the phase transition state of VO2 and the Fermi level of graphene. When VO2 is in the insulating phase and the Fermi level of graphene is 1 eV, a transmissive metasurface is established, which realizes cross-polarization conversion, anomalous refraction, focusing lens, and orbital angular momentum generation at the frequency of 0.63 THz by changing the geometric sizes of the unit cell. When VO2 is in the metal phase and the Fermi level of graphene is 0.01 eV, a reflective metasurface can be achieved, which realizes terahertz beam splitting, radar cross section, and anomalous reflection of a single beam at the frequency of 0.63 THz. This multifunctional wavefront control metasurface treating the combination of VO2 and graphene exhibits significant application prospects in terahertz transmission, imaging, and communication.