Efficient terahertz optical filtering with large-area all-metal and polymer-metal woven wire meshes

Abstract

Many components for terahertz (THz) optical filtering are mechanically fragile and are hard to produce with large aperture, making them unsuitable for applications where larger THz beam diameter is required. In this work, the THz optical properties of industrial-grade, readily available and inexpensive woven wire meshes are studied using THz time-domain spectroscopy and numerical simulations. These meshes are meter-sized, free-standing sheet materials that are principally attractive for the use as robust, large-area THz components. Our results show that such meshes can act as efficient, tunable THz bandpass filters due to sharp plasmonic resonance supported by the interwoven metallic wires. Further, the meshes that combine metallic and polymer wires act as efficient THz linear polarizers with a polarization extinction ratio (field) above 60:1 for frequencies below 3 THz.