Transflective spatial terahertz wave modulator

Spatial light modulators can digitally manipulate the amplitude, phase, and polarization of light. Their counterparts in the terahertz band are highly pursued to meet the requirements of numerous applications such as wireless communications and biomedical detection. Here, we propose a spatial terahertz wave modulator based on a liquid-crystal-integrated metadevice. The modulator consists of 8x8 pixels. The liquid crystal layer is sandwiched between an asymmetric split ring resonator array and pixelated interdigital electrodes. Fano resonance occurs for the transmitted wave, while the reflected wave is perfectly absorbed. By separately driving the liquid crystal with pixelated interdigital electrodes, both the Fano resonance and absorption peak can be continuously tuned due to the variation in the environmental refractive index. This work provides a transflective spatial terahertz wave modulator that can dynamically reconfigure a terahertz wavefront. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group