Terahertz polarizer based on tunable surface plasmon in graphene nanoribbon

Tunable surface plasmon resonance-based graphene nanoribbon (GNR) terahertz (THz) polarizers with adjustable operating frequency are proposed in this work. While conventional THz polarizers lack robustness and tunability, recently reported graphene-based metastructure polarizers have complex fabrication processes and comparatively smaller extinction ratios (ERs). A comprehensive study using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation technique reveals high ER, broad tunability, near-perfect degree of polarization (DOP), and low insertion loss for our proposed single and double stage GNR polarizers. The operating frequency of these narrow band polarizers can be tuned by varying GNR width, GNR pitch, chemical potential, and substrate material. Our optimized THz polarizer has an ER of 30 dB which is comparable to the commercially available THz polarizers. The maximum insertion losses within the tunable frequency range were found to be 0.24 dB and 1.87 dB for single and double stage GNR polarizers, respectively, which are substantially low. We compared the performance of the proposed structures with recently demonstrated graphene-based metastructure polarizers. The polarizers are promising for the design of photonic devices, integrated photonic circuits, and optoelectronic systems. (C) 2021 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

This study proposed tunable surface plasmon resonance-based graphene nanoribbon (GNR) terahertz (THz) polarizers with high ER, broad tunability, near-perfect degree of polarization, and low insertion loss. The operating frequency of these polarizers can be adjusted by changing parameters like GNR width. The optimized THz polarizer showed comparable performance to commercially available ones, making them promising for various photonic applications.