Metasurface-enabled pyroelectric detection of 140 GHz radiation with strong polarization discrimination

Despite the potential of the millimeter- and submillimeter-wave region for fundamental science and industrial applications, its technology is well behind microwaves and optics in terms of performance and cost. We propose to improve a millimeter-wave technology by engineering cost effective solutions from neighboring spectral regions. Specifically, a pyroelectric infrared sensor is transformed into a polarization-selective millimeter-wave detector of 140 GHz radiation by integrating to it a metasurface absorber, which is 136 times as thin as the operating wavelength λ and has the overall dimensions near λ. It is demonstrated that, due to the small thickness and hence the thermal capacity of the absorber, the novel detector keeps high values of the response speed and sensitivity to polarized mm-wave radiation changed insignificantly against the regime of IR detection.