Terahertz phase shifter based on phase change material-metasurface composite structure

With its rapid development, the terahertz technology is widely used in radar, imaging, remote sensing and data communication. As one of terahertz wave devices, the terahertz phase shifter has become a research hotspot. The existing phase shifters have the disadvantages of large volume, high power consumption and small phase shifting. In the present work, a tunable terahertz phase shifter with liquid crystal and vanadium dioxide is proposed. It is composed of an upper vanadium dioxide embedded metal layer, a liquid crystal, a lower vanadium dioxide embedded metal layer, and a silicon dioxide substrate in sequence from top to bottom. The liquid crystal is sandwiched between the upper and lower vanadium dioxide embedded metal layer. The phase of the device can be controlled by both the phase transition characteristics of vanadium dioxide and the birefringence of liquid crystal. By changing the external applied temperature, the conductivity of vanadium dioxide is changed, and the phase of the device shifts accordingly. Likewise the refractive index of the liquid crystal changes under different externally applied voltages. Finally, the phase of the proposed device can be effectively controlled in a terahertz range by both externally applied temperature and voltage. The phase shift characteristics of the device are analyzed by using software CST studio. The results verify that the terahertz phase shifter can achieve a maximum phase shift of 355.37° at f = 0.736 THz and a phase shift is larger than 350° in a range of 0.731–0.752 THz (bandwidth 22 GHz). Therefore, compared with the traditional phase shifter, this kind of phase change material-metasurface composite structure provides a new idea for flexibly manipulating the terahertz beam. And it is expected to be widely used in terahertz imaging, terahertz wireless and other fields.