Active terahertz metamaterials based on liquid-crystal induced transparency and absorption

An active terahertz (THz) liquid crystal (LC) metamaterial has been experimentally investigated for THz wave modulation. Some interesting phenomena of resonance shifting, tunable electromagnetically induced transparency (Err) and electromagnetically induced absorption (EIA) have been observed in the same device structure under different DC bias directions and different incident wave polarization directions by the THz time domain spectroscopy. Further theoretical studies indicate that these effects originate from interference and coupling between bright and dark mode components of elliptically polarized modes in the LC metamaterial, which are induced by the optical activity of LC alignment controllable by the electric field as well as the changes of LC refractive index. The LC layer is indeed a phase retarder and polarization converter that is controlled by the DC bias. The THz modulation depth of the analogs of Err and EIA effects are 183 dB and 10.5 dB in their frequency band, respectively. Electrical control, large modulation depth and feasible integration of this LC device make it an ideal candidate for THz tunable filter, intensity modulator and spatial light modulator. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.