Polarization control using passive and active crossed graphene gratings.

Graphene gratings provide a promising route towards the miniaturization of THz metasurfaces and other photonic devices, chiefly due to remarkable optical properties of graphene. In this paper, we propose novel graphene nanostructures for passive and active control of the polarization state of THz waves. The proposed devices are composed of two crossed graphene gratings separated by an insulator spacer. Because of specific linear and nonlinear properties of graphene, these optical metasurfaces can be utilized as ultrathin polarization converters operating in the THz frequency domain. In particular, our study shows that properly designed graphene polarizers can effectively select specific polarization states, their thickness being about a tenth of the operating wavelength and size more than 80× smaller than that of similar metallic devices. Equally important, we demonstrate that the nonlinear optical properties of graphene can be utilized to actively control the polarization state of generated higher harmonics.