Review

Controlling THz and far-IR waves with chiral and bianisotropic metamaterials

¹ Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Foundation for Research & Technology-Hellas, N. Plastira 100, 70013 Heraklion, Crete, Greece
² Ames Laboratory-USDOE, and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, 50011 Ames, Iowa
³ Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, 71003 Heraklion, Crete, Greece

^* e-mail: kafesaki@iesl.forth.gr

Received: 7 December 2015
Accepted: 7 December 2015
Published online: 8 February 2016

Abstract

Chiral and bianisotropic metamaterials, where coupling of magnetic and electric phenomena plays an important role, offer advanced possibilities for the control and manipulation of electromagnetic waves. Such a control is particularly useful in the THz and far-IR region where natural materials do not show strong response and thus they are not offered as components for a direct realization of electromagnetic wave manipulation. Among the most useful and important capabilities of chiral and bianisotropic metamaterials is the advanced control of the wave polarization that they offer, including giant polarization rotation, conversion, filtering, absorption, etc. In this paper we review our recent work demonstrating some of those capabilities, in a variety of structures, both planar and 3D-bulk ones. The structures presented show, among others, large optical activity, tunable/switchable wave ellipticity, and polarization-dependent asymmetric transmission.