基于透射型超表面的模态可重构太赫兹涡旋波束生成

Reconfigurable Mode Vortex Beam Generation Based on Transmissive Metasurfaces in the Terahertz Band

太赫兹技术与轨道角动量(OAM)技术相结合在高速无线通信领域具有巨大潜力。理论上不同模态的OAM之间具备严格正交性,若能将OAM技术应用到太赫兹通信系统中,必能极大提升系统的通信容量。因此,如何产生高质量的THz-OAM波束,并给予它灵活的动态控制成为研究者们的一大研究热点。该文设计了一种双层透射型超表面,使用3D打印作为加工方式,成本低、加工难度小。超表面单元结构采用高度可变的介质单元,随着单元高度不断发生改变,透射相位覆盖0°~360°,且透射率保持在88%以上。采用WR-10标准波导喇叭天线进行馈电,在100 GHz工作频率下,通过改变双层超表面之间的相对旋转角度,产生了不同模态的OAM波束。仿真结果表明,该文设计的超表面天线能够实现$l=1,2,3$的OAM波束,二维幅相结果符合对应模态的特征,$l=1,2,3$时,OAM波束的模态纯度分别为85.4%,84.9%,83.4%。通过太赫兹扫场测试平台测试了天线在90 GHz,100 GHz,110 GHz频点下的电场分布。结果表明:在20 GHz带宽内,产生的OAM波束质量较好,证明该文设计的超表面天线在高频工作具有一定的工作带宽,有望应用于高频OAM通信。

Combining Terahertz(THz) and Orbital Angular Momentum(OAM) technologies has great potential in high-speed wireless communication. Theoretically, OAM with different modes has strict orthogonality. The communication capacity of the system will improve significantly if OAM technology is applied to the THz communication system. Thus, the manner to generate a high-quality and dynamically controllable THz-OAM beam has been of significant interest to researchers in related fields. In this study, a double-layer transmissive metasurface that uses 3D printing as the processing method with a low cost and processing difficulty is designed. Note that the height of the unit cell for constructing the metasurface is configurable. As the height changes continuously, the phase of the transmitted wave covers 0~2π within 90~110 GHz, while the transmittance of the units is always higher than 88%. At 100 GHz, which is fed by a WR-10 standard waveguide horn antenna, OAM beams with different modes are generated by changing the relative rotation angle between the double-layer metasurface. The simulation results show that the metasurface antenna designed in this study can achieve OAM beams of l = 1, 2, 3, and the two-dimensional amplitude and phase results correspond with the characteristics of the corresponding modes. When l = 1, 2, 3, the OAM beam’s modal purity is 85.4%, 84.9%, and 83.4%, respectively. The measurement results include the results at frequency points of 90, 100, and 110 GHz. The results show that the OAM beam has a high-quality bandwidth of 20 GHz,which indicates that the metasurface antenna designed in this study has a wide working bandwidth at a high frequency and can be applied to high-frequency OAM communication.