Polarization is a basic characteristic of electromagnetic waves that conveys much optical information owing to its many states. The polarization state is manipulated and controlled for optical information security, optical encryption, and optical communication. Metasurface devices provide a new way to manipulate wave-fronts of light. A single ultrathin metasurface device can generate and modulate several differently polarized light fields, and thus carries optical information in several different channels. Terahertz (THz) waves have become widely used as carrier waves for wireless communication. Compact and functional metasurface devices are in high demand for THz elements and systems. This paper proposes a tri-layer metallic THz metasurface for multi-channel polarization generation and phase modulation with a high efficiency of approximately 80%. An azimuthally polarized THz vectorial beam generator is realized and characterized for use as a THz polarization analyzer. The incident polarization angle can be observed graphically with high accuracy. Moreover, a vectorial hologram with eight channels for different linear polarization states is demonstrated experimentally. The information in different holograms can be hidden by choosing the polarization channel for detection. This work contributes to achieving multi-functional metasurface in the THz band and can benefit THz communication and optical information security.

Low-loss dielectric terahertz (THz) chips are efficient platforms for diverse THz applications. One of the key elements in the chip is the coupler. Most of the available THz couplers are in-plane and couple the THz wave from the metal waveguide to the dielectric waveguide. However, out-of-plane couplers are more suitable for wafer-scale testing and tolerant of alignment variation. In this work, we propose an out-of-plane THz coupler for coupling the antenna to the dielectric waveguide. The device is constructed using a grating and a compact spot-size converter. As the conventional optical spot-size converters that apply directly to THz chips are too large, we have designed a compact spot-size converter based on a tapered waveguide with a lens. The total device is 2.9 cm long and can couple a 7 mm diameter THz beam to a 500 µm wide waveguide. The device can scan the THz beam, radiate the input rectangular waveguide mode to free space, and drive the rotation angle of the fan beam through the scanning frequency. We fabricated the device using a single lithography step on a silicon wafer. The out-of-plane coupling efficiency was found to be ∼5 dB at 194 GHz. The fan-beam steering range was found to be around 40° in the frequency range of 170–220 GHz. The proposed out-of-plane coupling technique may provide an effective way for THz wafer-scale testing with a higher degree of freedom for on-chip integration. Also, the proposed technique being non-mechanical, beam steering using it, may therefore find applications in THz radar, communication, and sensing.