Polarization control with helical metasurfaces

Abstract

The ability to fully control the polarization of light using chiral metadevices has drawn considerable attention in various applications of integrated photonics, communication systems, and life sciences. In this work, we propose a comprehensive approach for the design of metasurfaces with desired polarization properties for reflected and transmitted waves based on the proper spatial arrangement of chiral inclusions in the unit cell. Polarization conversion is achieved by engineering induced electric and magnetic dipole moments of the metasurface inclusions. We show that under a proper arrangement, the same inclusion can be used as a building block of metasurfaces with drastically different wave-transformation functionalities. The horizontally and vertically oriented metallic helices were used as simplest chiral inclusions, which can be manufactured by the established 3D fabrication techniques from THz up to the visible spectral range. The proposed metadevices provide a deep understanding of the light–matter interaction for polarization conversions with helix-based structures and opens the way to new possibilities of electromagnetic polarization control with advanced chiral metadevices in communication and imaging systems.