A transparent metamaterial to manipulate electromagnetic wave polarizations

We design an anisotropic ultrathin metamaterial to allow perfect transmissions of electromagnetic (EM) waves for two incident polarizations within a common frequency interval. The transparencies are governed by different mechanisms, resulting in significant differences in transmission phase changes for two polarizations. The system can thus manipulate EM wave polarizations efficiently in transmission geometry, including polarization conversion and rotation. Microwave experiments performed on realistic samples are in excellent agreement with numerical simulations. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America