Abstract

In the terahertz region of the electromagnetic spectrum, there has been a long-standing interest in the development of devices and components to manipulate free-space beams. Metamaterials offer a promising strategy for enabling many capabilities that are otherwise challenging, such as filtering and modulation. In most cases, these structures are realized as two-dimensional meta-surfaces, a class of metamaterials where the scattering elements are arranged in a planar array. Because the elements are deposited on a dielectric surface, the optical properties can be modulated by actively modifying the properties of the surface. This general approach has revealed a wealth of new phenomena, opening up many possibilities for both linear and non-linear optical interactions in the terahertz range. In this presentation, several examples will be described, including spatial light modulation and active electrical control of terahertz optical nonlinearity.