Imprinted terahertz artificial dielectric quarter wave plates.

We have developed low-loss polymer artificial dielectric quarter wave plates (QWP) operating at 2.6, 3.2 and 3.8 THz. The QWPs are imprinted on high density polyethylene (HDPE) using silicon masters. The grating period for the quarter wave plates is 60 microm. 330 microm, 280 microm and 230 microm deep gratings are used to obtain a pi/2 phase retardance between TE and TM polarization propagating through the QWPs. High frequency structure simulator (HFSS) was used to optimize the grating depth. Since the required grating depth is high, two plates, fixed in a back-to-back configuration were used for each QWP. A maximum aspect ratio (grating height/grating width) of 6.6 was used.