Actively tunable bi-functional metamirror in a terahertz band

In this work, we have proposed an actively tunable bi-functional metamirror based on a bi-layer graphene structure. The metamirror acts as a spin-selective absorber under circularly polarized incidence, which behaves as nearly perfect absorption and reflection for right and left circularly polarized waves, respectively, leading to giant circular dichroism. On the other hand, it is a polarization converter under linearly polarized incidence, which reflects the linearly polarized wave into a left circularly polarized wave. Both the spin-selective absorber and the polarization converter can be actively switched between ON and OFF states, with the working frequency controlled by the voltages applied to graphene. Moreover, the metamirror is insensitive to the incidence angle, which contributes to its application as a stable single-mode spin-selective absorber and polarization converter. This bi-layer graphene structure offers a method to construct actively tunable bi-functional metamirrors, which may achieve potential applications in integrated devices, such as active spin detectors, absorbers, and quarter-wave plates for terahertz waves. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America

Automated summary

This work introduces an actively tunable bi-functional metamirror based on a bi-layer graphene structure, which can achieve spin-selective absorption and polarization conversion under different polarization conditions, with stable performance.