Graphene-Integrated Metamaterial Device for All-Electrical Polarization Control of Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers

Kindness, Stephen J. and Almond, Nikita W. and Michailow, Wladislaw and Wei, Binbin and Jakob, Lukas A. and Delfanazari, Kaveh and Braeuninger-Weimer, Philipp and Hofmann, Stephan and Beere, Harvey E. and Ritchie, David A. and Degl'Innocenti, Riccardo (2019) Graphene-Integrated Metamaterial Device for All-Electrical Polarization Control of Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers. ACS Photonics, 6 (6). pp. 1547-1555. ISSN 2330-4022

Text (ACS_Submission (5))
ACS_Submission_5_.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (5MB)

Text (acsphotonics.9b00411)
acsphotonics.9b00411.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (3MB)

Abstract

Optoelectronic modulators that operate by the electrical tuning of plasmonic resonator structures have demonstrated fast (>MHz) manipulation of terahertz (THz) radiation for communications, imaging, and spectroscopy applications. Among this class of THz device, chiral metamaterial-based polarization modulators have attracted increasing attention due to the importance of THz polarization control for chemistry, biology, and spectroscopy applications, as well as for THz communication protocols. In this paper, active polarization modulation of a THz quantum cascade laser is demonstrated by the electrical tuning of a 2D chiral metamaterial array. The operating principle of this device is based on an electromagnetically induced transparency analogue, produced by the coupling between a bright resonator and two dark resonators. The orientation of these resonators is such that a radiating electric dipole orthogonal to the incident electric field polarization is induced, causing a rotation of the polarization angle of the transmitted radiation. By variably dampening the dark resonators using graphene, the coupling condition is electrically modulated such that continuous tuning of the transmitted polarization angle is achieved. This device, operating at room temperature, can be readily implemented as a fast, optoelectronic, polarization modulator with a maximum tuning range of 20 degrees at 1.75 THz, with demonstrated reconfiguration speeds of >5 MHz.