Tunable broadband terahertz graphene metasurface for complex-amplitude vortex beam generator and hologram

Abstract

The independent controls of phase and amplitude, known as complex-amplitude modulation, play a crucial role for modulating the electromagnetic wavefronts. In this paper, a tunable broadband terahertz (THz) graphene metasurface with complex-amplitude modulation is proposed. A novel hybrid modulation mechanism that combines the absorption, polarization conversion, and Pancharatnam–Berry (PB) phase is employed to achieve a wide complex-amplitude modulation range over a broad frequency band. In addition, the metasurface can be dynamically tuned from the electrically tunable nature of the graphene in the THz range. To reveal the tunability characteristics of the metasurface as the graphene chemical potential varies, we study the Kubo formula of the graphene conductivity model and combine it with the equivalent circuit model. Two THz graphene meta-devices are designed for complex-amplitude vortex beam generator and hologram. By varying the graphene chemical potentials of 0 and 1 eV as the ON and OFF states, a THz quad-vortex-beam generator with switchable modes is designed and verified. We also demonstrate a THz hologram with complex-amplitude modulation by adjusting the chemical potential, exhibiting low imaging noise and high image quality. The proposed method is promised to be applied to the design of more complex-amplitude THz graphene meta-devices.