Spintronic terahertz polarization programmable system for information encoding

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) wave as an important electromagnetic wave has been increasingly applied in wireless communication and imaging sensing technology. It has been an increasingly practical application. Ultra-high data rates in communication technology push toward a broadband, controllable polarization, and multiple transmission channels signal sources. Here, we propose a programmable polarization spintronics terahertz source (PP-STS), in which contains a controllable polarization spintronic THz emitter and a microcontroller unit. The PP-STS not only can generate THz waves with wide frequency bandwidth, but also has the function of switching the orthogonal linear polarization state of the generated THz waves flexibly. By coding the microcontroller unit, the designed PP-SPS can directly program the orthogonal linear polarization states as a series of information to transmit. To achieve the interconversions between digital codes and the THz polarization information, an optimum matching THz polarization beam splitter (THz-PBS) is also designed via simulations and experiments. The THz-PBS, as a decoder, can accurately split the transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) modes into two THz detectors. At last, a coding and decoding prototype system of spintronic THz polarization is built by integrating the PP-STS, the THz-PBS and two THz detectors. The send and receive information with high speed and accuracy are verified in this prototype system as well. We believe that our work takes THz applications for multiplexing communications one step further and sheds light on commercializing the PP-STS with exciting manufacturing lines for efficient and economical THz polarization technology.