Abstract

We have fabricated a quarter-wave plate from a single layer of birefringent electric split-ring resonators (ELC). For comparison, an appropriately scaled double layer meanderline structure was fabricated. At the design frequency of 639 GHz, the ELC structure achieves 99.9% circular polarization while the meanderline achieves 99.6%. The me-anderline displays a larger bandwidth of operation, attaining over 99% circular polarization from 615 - 743 GHz, while the ELC achieves 99% from 626 - 660 GHz. However, both are broad enough for use with CW sources making ELCs a more attractive choice due to the ease of fabrication. Both samples are free standing with a total thickness of 70µm for the meanderline structure and a mere 20µm for the ELC highlighting the large degree of birefringence exhibited with metamaterial structures.

© 2009 Optical Society of America

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History
Original Manuscript: October 24, 2008
Manuscript Accepted: December 18, 2008
Revised Manuscript: December 18, 2008
Published: December 23, 2008

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Author Affiliations

Andrew C. Strikwerda, Kebin Fan, Hu Tao, Daniel V. Pilon, Xin Zhang, Richard D. Averitt

Boston University

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