Recent Progress on Graphene-Functionalized Metasurfaces for Tunable Phase and Polarization Control

The combination of graphene and a metasurface holds great promise for dynamic manipulation of the electromagnetic wave from low terahertz to mid-infrared. The optical response of graphene is significantly enhanced by the highly-localized fields in the meta-atoms, and the characteristics of meta-atoms can in turn be modulated in a large dynamic range through electrical doping of graphene. Graphene metasurfaces are initially focused on intensity modulation as modulators and tunable absorbers. In this paper, we review the recent progress of graphene metasurfaces for active control of the phase and the polarization. The related applications involve, but are not limited to lenses with tunable intensity or focal length, dynamic beam scanning, wave plates with tunable frequency, switchable polarizers, and real-time generation of an arbitrary polarization state, all by tuning the gate voltage of graphene. The review is concluded with a discussion of the existing challenges and the personal perspective of future directions.