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Wang YM, Fan F, Zhao HJ et al. Terahertz active multi-channel vortices with parity symmetry breaking and near/far field multiplexing based on a dielectric-liquid crystal-plasmonic metadevice. Opto-Electron Adv 8, 240250 (2025). doi: 10.29026/oea.2025.240250
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Terahertz active multi-channel vortices with parity symmetry breaking and near/far field multiplexing based on a dielectric-liquid crystal-plasmonic metadevice
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Abstract
Vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) are of great significance for high-capacity communication and super-resolution imaging. However, there is a huge gap between the free-space vortices (FVs) and plasmonic vortices (PVs) on chips, and active manipulation as well as multiplexing in more channels have become a pressing demand. In this work, we demonstrate a terahertz (THz) cascaded metadevice composed of a helical plasmonic metasurface, a liquid crystal (LC) layer, and a helical dielectric metasurface. By spin-orbital angular momentum coupling and photon state superposition, PVs and FVs are generated with mode purity of over 85% on average. Due to the inversion asymmetric design of the helical metasurfaces, the parity symmetry breaking of OAM is realized (the topological charge numbers no longer occur in positive and negative pairs, but all are positive), generating 6 independent channels associated with the decoupled spin states and the near-/far- field positions. Moreover, by the LC integration, dynamic mode switching and energy distribution can be realized, finally obtaining up to 12 modes with a modulation ratio of above 70%. This active tuning and multi-channel multiplexing metadevice establishes a bridge connection between the PVs and FVs, exhibiting promising applications in THz communication, intelligent perception, and information processing.-
Keywords:
- terahertz /
- optical vortex /
- plasmonic metasurface /
- near/far field /
- multi-channel /
- liquid crystal
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References
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Supplementary information for Terahertz active multi-channel vortices with parity symmetry breaking and near/far field multiplexing based on a dielectric-liquid crystal-plasmonic metadevice 
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Wang YM, Fan F, Zhao HJ et al. Terahertz active multi-channel vortices with parity symmetry breaking and near/far field multiplexing based on a dielectric-liquid crystal-plasmonic metadevice. Opto-Electron Adv 8, 240250 (2025). doi: 10.29026/oea.2025.240250
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Figure 1.
Schematic diagram of the proposed metadevice and the experimental setup. (a) The functional diagram of the LC-integrated cascaded metadevice with 6 spin-dependent vortex channels. (b) The detailed structure of the metadevice; Micrographs of (c) dielectric metasurface and (d) plasmonic metasurface. (e) Schematic diagram of N/F-STS system, in which the measurement methods of NF and FF are illustrated.
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Figure 2.
Structure scheme of the single plasmonic metasurface layer and its performances. (a) Simulated and experimental anisotropic transmission spectrum of metal slit array with a=160 μm, b=50 μm. (b) Schematic diagram of the plasmonic metasurface, the right part is the detailed diagrams of paired slits and the kth spiral-arrayed slit pair resonator. (c) The function of a single plasmonic metasurface layer. (d) Simulated and (e) experimental NF/FF intensity and phase distributions at f0=0.475 THz.
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Figure 3.
Structure scheme of the single dielectric metasurface and its performance results. (a) Schematic diagram of spin-decoupled all-dielectric metasurface containing pillars with 5 geometric sizes. Inset: perspective and top views of meta-atoms. (b) The simulated anisotropic phase delays, (c) phase shifts, and (d) transmission coefficients in the x direction under 45°-LP incidence when the width w and the length q are swept from 60 μm to 280 μm. The selected rectangle pillars are marked with dots. (e) The simulated and experimental FF intensity and phase distribution.
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Figure 4.
Results and evaluations of designed cascaded metadevice. (a) The simulated and (b) experimental intensity and phase distribution of 12-mode vortices at the central frequency f0. (c) The vortex mode purity matrix and (d) isolation of 6 channels in simulation when the LC orientation is along the y- and z-axis.
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Figure 5.
Illustrations of the active modulation in the 2 NF channels. With the LC orientation rotating in the y-z plane, (a) the simulated evolution process of the intensity and phase distributions of PVs with P = zL and zR at the frequency f0. (b) the measured evolution process of intensity distributions. (c) The dynamic modulation process of the mode purity for PVs in simulation. (d) Simulated and experimental modulation ratio of the expected PV modes.
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Figure 6.
Illustrations of the active modulation in the 4 FF channels. With the LC orientation rotating in the y-z plane, the (a) simulated and (b) measured evolution process of the intensity distributions at the frequency f0. (c) The dynamic modulation process of the mode purity for FVs in simulation. (d) Simulated and experimental modulation ratio of the expected FV modes.
