Rapid prototyping of flexible terahertz metasurfaces using a microplotter

Additive manufacturing is a promising tool for the rapid prototyping of terahertz metamaterials at low-cost. In this letter, a terahertz metamaterial is fabricated using a microplotter system on a flexible polyimide film. The limits of the rapid prototyping technique is investigated both experimentally and numerically in order to determine the spectral range accessible by the fabricated metamaterials. Here, the metamaterial is composed of four arrays of metal-insulatormetal (MIM) antennas exhibiting a Fabry Perot resonance at frequencies from 0.25 to 0.8 THz. From a structural analysis of the printed antennas, we determined that the printing resolution is limited to about 5 mu m. The arrays are analyzed by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). The good agreement between THz-TDS measurements and numerical simulations showed that the microplotter system can be used for rapid prototyping by adjusting a limited number of fabrication parameters. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

Additive manufacturing is used to fabricate terahertz metamaterials on a flexible polyimide film, with investigations into the limits of the technique showing a printing resolution of about 5 microns. The agreement between THz-TDS measurements and numerical simulations demonstrates that the microplotter system can be effectively used for rapid prototyping by adjusting a limited number of fabrication parameters.