Polarization properties in helical metamaterials

doi:10.1007/s12200-012-0267-9

Front Optoelec

2012, Vol. 5

Issue (3) : 248-255 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-012-0267-9

REVIEW ARTICLE

Polarization properties in helical metamaterials

Zhenyu YANG¹(

), Peng ZHANG¹, Peiyuan XIE², Lin WU¹, Zeqin LU¹, Ming ZHAO¹

1. Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, College of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China; 2. Hunan Electric Power Company Dispatches & Communication Center, Changsha 410007, China

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Abstract

In the last few years, there has been growing interest in the research of helical metamaterials due to the advantages of giant circular dichroism, broad operation bands, and compact structures. However, most of the researches were in the cases of single-, circular-helical metamaterials, and normal incidences. In this paper, we reviewed recent simulation works in the helical metamaterials with the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, which mainly included the optical performances of double-, three-, four-helical metamaterials, performances of elliptical-helical metamaterials, and the polarization properties under the condition of oblique incidences. The results demonstrate that the double-helical metamaterials have operation bands more than 50%, which is broader than those of the single-helical structures. But both of them have low signal-to-noise ratios about 10 dB. The three- and four-helical metamaterials have significant improvement in overall performance. For elliptical-helixes, simulation results suggest that the transmitted light can have elliptical polarization states. On the condition of oblique incidences, the novel property of tunable polarization states occurred in the helical metamaterials, which could have much broader potential applications such as tunable optical polarizers, tunable beam splitters, and tunable optical attenuators.

Keywords finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method polarization chiral media helical metamaterials

Corresponding Author(s): YANG Zhenyu,Email:zyang@mail.hust.edu.cn

Issue Date: 05 September 2012

Cite this article:

Zeqin LU,Ming ZHAO,Zhenyu YANG, et al. Polarization properties in helical metamaterials[J]. Front Optoelec, 2012, 5(3): 248-255.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/foe/EN/10.1007/s12200-012-0267-9
https://academic.hep.com.cn/foe/EN/Y2012/V5/I3/248

Fig.1 Schematic diagrams of single-helical metamaterials

Fig.2 Schematic diagrams of double-helical metamaterials

Fig.3 Comparison of optical performances between single- and double-helical metamaterials. (a) and (b) Au single- and double-helix; (c) and (d) Al single- and double-helix

Tab.1 Comparison of optical performances between single- and double-helical metamaterials

Fig.4 Schematic diagrams of (a) three- and (b) four-helical metamaterials

Fig.5 Optical performances of LCP incident light, and transmitted lights through single-, double-, three-, and four-helix

Fig.6 (a) Optical performance of elliptically single-helical metamaterials; (b) polarization state of transmitted LEP light represented on Poincaré sphere

Tab.2 Polarization states of transmitted LEP light

Tab.3 Parameters and simulation results with different incident angles

Fig.7 Optical performances of the helical metamaterials with different incident angles. (a)-(e) are for the incident angles of 20°, 10°, 0°, -10°, and -20°, respectively; (f) is comparison of the transmitted light’s polarization states (represented on the Poincaré sphere). The blue, green, red, cyan, and pink points refer to the incident angles of 20°, 10°, 0°, -10°, and -20°, respectively

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