Reconfigurable Linear-to-Circular Polarization Conversion Using Liquid Crystal-Based Reflective Metasurface

This letter presents a reconfigurable polarization converter employing a metasurface with liquid crystals (LC) to convert linearly polarized (LP) waves into either left-hand circularly polarized (LHCP) waves or right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP) waves within the frequency range of 367.50–389.09 GHz in simulations. Exploiting the inherent birefringence of the LC material, our experiment demonstrates the conversion of LP waves into RHCP waves across the 371.00–385.10 GHz range without external biasing. Applying a saturated bias voltage facilitates LP wave to LHCP wave conversion. Unlike conventional fixed-response linear-to-circular polarization converters, our design presents a readily implementable approach for reconfigurable polarization conversion, holding significant promise in terahertz and optical imaging and sensing applications.