Terahertz Metasurfaces on Flex Using Aerosol Jet Printing and a Novel Parylene Lift-off Process

This paper demonstrates a novel approach to fabricating terahertz metasurface components on ultra-thin flexible substrates using additive manufacturing processes. In the proposed process, silver ink is printed on a glass (quartz) substrate and is sintered at higher temperatures to enhance the conductivity. Thereafter, this metasurface and the glass substrate are placed into the parylene-C coating deposition system to deposit a film with a thickness of approximately 10 μm. The flexible parylene-C film and the silver metasurface are lifted from the glass substrate. Fabrication of a single layer conducting metasurface is investigated in this paper. As an example, a THz metasurface-based polarizer is fabricated using this process. The paper details the lift-off processes, aerosol-jet printing, and the design and characterization of the polarizer. The simulation and measured results match closely, and the lift-off process is repeatable.