Terahertz metamaterials on free-standing highly-flexible polyimide substrates

TL;DR

This paper reports the fabrication of flexible, free-standing terahertz metamaterials on ultra-thin polyimide substrates, enabling the development of multi-layer non-planar structures for advanced terahertz applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to create robust, flexible terahertz metamaterials on ultra-thin polyimide substrates, facilitating non-planar and multi-layer configurations.

Findings

Metamaterials fabricated on 5.5 micron polyimide are highly flexible.

The substrates allow wrapping into cylinders with millimeter radii.

The approach enables multi-layer non-planar terahertz metamaterials.

Abstract

We have fabricated resonant terahertz metamaterials on free standing polyimide substrates. The low-loss polyimide substrates can be as thin as 5.5 micron yielding robust large-area metamaterials which are easily wrapped into cylinders with a radius of a few millimeters. Our results provide a path forward for creating multi-layer non-planar metamaterials at terahertz frequencies.