Terahertz wire grid polarizer fabricated by imprinting porous silicon

A terahertz (THz) wire-grid polarizer is fabricated by imprinting porous Si followed by oblique evaporation of Ag. We demonstrate that it works in a wide frequency region covering from 5 to 18 THz with the extinction ratio of 10 dB. The frequency region is much wider than that of THz wire-grid polarizers fabricated by conventional imprint lithography using organic materials. The result suggests that imprinting of porous Si is a promising fabrication technique to realize low-cost wire-grid polarizers working in the THz region. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America