Fabricating THz spiral zone plate by high throughput femtosecond laser air filament direct writing

The sixth-generation wireless communication will exploit the radio band with frequencies higher than 90 GHz, reaching terahertz (THz) band, to achieve huge signal bandwidths. However, the cost-effective fabrication methods of the key components in THz band, which can compromise large scale, high precision, and high efficiency, remain great challenges at present. In this work, we have developed a high throughput fabrication method based on the femtosecond laser filament direct writing. The ability of fabricating large-scale THz elements with high precision and fast speed has been demonstrated by fabricating 100 × 100 mm(2) spiral zone plates (SZPs), which can convert the Gaussian THz beam into vortex beam. The performance of the obtained THz vortex beam is in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. The fabrication method reported here has promising applications in fabricating various kinds of THz elements on substrates with both flat and curved surfaces.