With the increase in potential uses of terahertz technology, the need for terahertz transceivers with application-oriented adaptive radiation patterns has emerged. Reconfigurable reflectarrays consisting of actuated sub-wavelength reflectors have been successfully used for terahertz beam steering and beamforming. They do not require a complex feeding network and associated electronics, enabling a compact and power-efficient terahertz beam steering system. However, the current reflectarray-based beam steering is accomplished by forming the reflectarray as a grating structure, which is accompanied by the problems such as grating lobes, limited steering range, and discrete steering angles. Here, we configure a MEMS-based reflectarray with the genetic algorithm to eliminate the grating lobes and open up the possibility of customizing its radiation pattern. We used single- and multi-objective optimization to find the optimal height profile of the reflectarray and verified the results by full-wave electromagnetic simulations. We measured the radiation patterns of four reflectarray phantoms, i.e. reflectarrays without the MEMS actuation systems. The measurement results agree well with the calculated ones, with the main beam deviating at most 2° from the target direction. Our work demonstrates how a genetic algorithm is used to shape a reconfigurable terahertz reflectarray to eliminate the grating lobes and tailor some specific featuress in its radiation pattern.

With an increasing number of applications of terahertz systems in industrial fields and communications, terahertz beamforming and beam steering techniques are required for high-speed, large-area scanning. As a promising means for beam steering, micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS)-based reflection gratings have been successfully implemented for terahertz beam control. So far, the diffraction grating efficiency is relatively low due to the limited vertical displacement range of the reflectors. In this paper, we propose a design for a reconfigurable MEMS-based reflection grating consisting of multiple subwavelength reflectors which are driven by 5-bit, high-throw electrostatic actuators. We vary the number of the reflectors per grating period and configure the throw of individual reflectors so that the reflection grating is shaped as a blazed grating to steer the terahertz beam with maximum diffraction grating efficiency. Furthermore, we provide a mathematical model for calculating the radiation pattern of the terahertz wave reflected by general reflection gratings consisting of subwavelength reflectors. The calculated and simulated radiation patterns of the designed grating show that we can steer the angle of the terahertz waves in a range of up to ± 56.4 ${}^{\circ }$ with a maximum sidelobe level of −10 dB at frequencies from 0.3 THz to 1 THz.

Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy systems driven by monolithic mode-locked laser diodes (MLLDs) exhibit bandwidths exceeding 1 THz and a peak dynamic range that can compete with other state-of-the-art systems. Their main difference compared to fiber-laser-driven systems is their ultra-high repetition rate of typically dozens of GHz. This makes them interesting for applications where the length of the terahertz path may not be precisely known and it enables the use of a very short and potentially fast optical delay unit. However, the phase accuracy of the system is limited by the accuracy with which the delay axes of subsequent measurements are synchronized. In this work, we utilize an all-fiber approach that uses the optical signal from the MLLD in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer to generate a reference signal that we use to synchronize the detected terahertz signals. We demonstrate transmission-mode thickness measurements of stacked layers of $17\mathsf{\mu }$m thick low-density polyethylene (LDPE) films.

In recent years terahertz (THz) technology has attracted great interest in biosensing applications. Due to the interaction between analyte and electromagnetic (EM) field, a THz resonator is sensitive to changes in the refractive index of the analyte and can be used as a thin-film sensor for rapid pathogen diagnosis. To achieve high sensitivity and reliability, the sensor should have a high Q factor, a high field concentration at the site of the analyte, and the ability to compensate for temperature effects. However, conventional metamaterial methods have a low Q factor, which may lead to ambiguous detection and no attention has been paid to address the temperature effects. Here, we present a photonic crystal (PhC) based chip consisting of a reference channel and a sensing channel with two identical PhC slot resonators. The resonance difference between the resonators is temperature invariant and can be used for analyte detection. The dual-channel PhC chip has a Q factor of 5063 and a figure of merit of 3.1 /RIU/ $\mu \text{m}$ (RIU is refractive index unit), which are higher than that of metamaterial sensors. The chip is designed and simulated for the W band by 3D field simulations and is verified by measurements. Our results suggest that THz PhC resonators can provide high sensitivity and high resistance to environmental effects. We anticipate our work to be a starting point for future biosensing applications.

Photonic true time delay beam steering on the transmitter side of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz TDS) systems requires many wideband variable optical delay elements and an array of coherently driven emitters operating over a huge bandwidth. We propose driving the THz TDS system with a monolithic mode-locked laser diode (MLLD). This allows us to use integrated optical ring resonators (ORRs) whose periodic group delay spectra are aligned with the spectrum of the MLLD as variable optical delay elements. We show by simulation that a tuning range equal to one round-trip time of the MLLD is sufficient for beam steering to any elevation angle and that the loss introduced by the ORR is less than 0.1 dB. We find that the free spectral ranges (FSRs) of the ORR and the MLLD need to be matched to 0.01% so that the pulse is not significantly broadened by third-order dispersion. Furthermore, the MLLD needs to be frequency-stabilized to about 100 MHz to prevent significant phase errors in the terahertz signal. We compare different element distributions for the array and show that a distribution according to a Golomb ruler offers both reasonable directivity and no grating lobes from 50 GHz to 1 THz.

We present a micro-electromechanical reflectarray driven by large displacement actuators with multi-point stability that is intended for THz beam steering. The reflectarray consists of a stack of multiple SOI-chips each featuring a movable reflector. The position of each reflector is individually varied by in-plane mechanical digital-to-analog converters (DAC) that address 27 discrete and equidistant positions driven by only three pairs of cascaded tri-stable electrostatic actuators. Generally, the mechanical DAC addresses 3 $^n$ equidistant positions at a minimum number of 2 $n$ actuators. The reflector displacement is enlarged by combining the DAC output with a mechanical leverage. We demonstrate an SOI-fabrication method allowing to stack multiple chips for a one-dimensional array featuring large displacement DACs and large reflector surfaces. The full-wave electromagnetic simulations of the reflectarray verify its feasibility for terahertz beam steering applications. The electro-mechanical characterization shows the high-resolution displacement of single actuation systems as well as the functionality of a stacked 3 $\times$ 1 reflectarray. 2022-0149