Spoof surface plasmon (SSP) meta-couplers that efficiently integrate other diversified functionalities into a single ultrathin device are highly desirable in the modern microwave and terahertz fields. However, the diversified functionalities, to the best of our knowledge, have not been applied to circular polarization meta-couplers because of the spin coupling between the orthogonal incident waves. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a terahertz spin-decoupled bifunctional meta-coupler for SSP excitation and beam steering. The designed meta-coupler is composed of a coupling metasurface and a propagating metasurface. The former aims at realizing anomalous reflection or converting the incident waves into SSP under the illumination of the right or left circular polarization waves, respectively, and the latter are used to guide out the excited SSP. The respective converting efficiency can reach 82% and 70% at 0.3THz for the right and left circular polarization incident waves. Besides, by appropriately adjusting the reflection phase distribution, many other functionalities can also be integrated into the meta-coupler. Our study may open up new routes for polarization-related SSP couplers, detectors, and other practical terahertz devices.

A 1 bit single-polarization broadband space-time-coding digital metasurface element with a zero cross polarization is proposed. This element consists of a modified patch, an electronic switch, a dc-bias network, a ground plane, and two-layer dielectrics. The upper patch with edge loading and centered square hole is fully optimized to achieve broadband and stable phase difference between two states. By electronically controlling the diode, the element achieves a 1 bit phase shift with a relative bandwidth of 20% within 180° ± 30° from 7.71 to 9.43 GHz. Moreover, a negligible cross polarization is obtained due to the uniaxial symmetry of the structure, and the amplitude loss is less than 0.8 dB for two states. The experimental results measured in a rectangular waveguide are well matched with the simulations, further demonstrating validity of the proposed element.

In this paper, we propose and numerically demonstrate a new way to realize superfocusing of terahertz waves via the spoof surface plasmons (SSP). With the assist of a modified subwavelength metallic grating, a near-field rapid oscillation can be formed, originating from the Fabry–Perot resonances due to the reflection of SSP waves at terminations. We show that the field pattern of oscillation on textured metallic surface can be engineered by adjusting groove width and grating number. This produces a desired modulation of phase and amplitude for the radiationless electromagnetic interference (REI) focusing. The effective focusing depth through the corrugated metal is evaluated by the full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) beamwidth. At the situation of third-order Fabry–Perot resonance, the FWMH reaches up to 0.069λ at a distance of 0.1λ, improving the beamwidth by more than 540% compared with a single slit. The FWHM is optimized to 0.06λ as the order of Fabry–Perot resonance becomes seven, leading to the superfocusing metric of 1.67. On the basis of this, we further show the focusing ability can be held on the ultra-thin metallic grating. Two-dimensional subwavelength focusing behavior is also numerically verified. Our study may extend the working distance of sensing and super-resolution imaging devices at terahertz frequency.

Reflective multichannel metasurfaces are flat reflectors that can control incident and reflected waves in a number of propagating directions simultaneously. However, they are always densely discretized with a high spatial resolution, which increases the manufacturing complexity. In this Letter, to the best of our knowledge, a new method that combines the array antenna theory with the metagratings theory is proposed. We demonstrate that the unit cells with a linear gradient phase in each period of the metasurfaces can eliminate specific space harmonics. With this method, multichannel metasurfaces can be designed with sparse unit cells, and high efficiency is maintained simultaneously. As proofs of the method, we design three different terahertz multichannel metasurfaces with no more than three unit cells per period. The simplification of structures can efficiently reduce the manufacturing complexity. This work may open up new routes in designing multichannel metasurfaces.

Reflective metasurfaces are utilized as a bridge linking propagating waves and surface waves. However, the effective constitutive parameters (permittivity and permeability) cannot be retrieved by conventional theory without transmission coefficients. In this paper, an innovative method based on a quasi-one-port network model is proposed to robustly retrieve the effective electromagnetic parameters (ϵeff, μeff, neff, and zeff) for reflective metasurfaces with isotropic unit cells. The validity of the method is demonstrated by imping TE-polarized terahertz waves normally and obliquely (10° on the multiple-layer unit cells. The effective boundary of the multiple-layer cells is determined by minimizing the deviation of the effective refractive indices from 0.1018 to 0.0260 using a genetic algorithm, which increases the consistency of the retrieval results. The sensitivity of the effective constitutive parameters to the accuracy of reflection coefficients and nonzero incident angle θi is also discussed. This method is beneficial for the design of reflective metasurfaces or multichannel reflectors, the coupling of spoof space plasmon polaritons, and other applications of anomalous reflection.