Reconfigurable Curved Beams at Terahertz Frequencies Using Inverse-Designed Bilayer Diffractive Structures

TL;DR

This paper introduces a reconfigurable, inverse-designed bilayer diffractive optical system capable of generating and controlling curved terahertz beams along arbitrary trajectories, enhancing wavefront engineering for communications.

Contribution

It presents a novel passive, reconfigurable THz beam shaping method using inverse-designed cascaded diffractive layers with simple rotation-based reconfiguration.

Findings

Successfully demonstrated arbitrary curved beam trajectories

Achieved reconfiguration by rotating the second diffractive layer

Validated results through simulations and experimental measurements

Abstract

Curved electromagnetic beams at terahertz (THz) frequencies have recently emerged as a powerful example of wavefront engineering, with applications in imaging and high-capacity wireless communications. Unlike canonical self-accelerating solutions such as Airy beams, general curved-beam propagation enables arbitrary, application-specific trajectories that are not constrained by analytic beam families. Here, we demonstrate a passive and reconfigurable approach for generating trajectory-engineered THz curved beams using inverse-designed bilayer diffractive optical elements (DOEs). Two phase-only diffractive layers are optimized using gradient-based inverse design to produce predetermined curved propagation paths. Reconfiguration is achieved by a 180{\deg} rotation of the second layer, which modifies the effective phase profile of the cascaded structure without altering the incident wave or individual layer designs. The proposed system can produce distinct curved trajectories with controlled transverse displacement and beam confinement, as confirmed by scalar diffraction simulations and experimental measurements. Overall, this work establishes inverse-designed cascaded DOEs as a compact and scalable platform for reconfigurable trajectory control of THz beams, providing a flexible alternative to analytic self-accelerating beams for radiative near-field THz communications.