Reciprocal Circular Polarization Handedness Conversion Using Chiral Metamaterials

Chiral metamaterials (CMMs) are widely used to implement devices that transform the polarization of an incident electromagnetic wave, such as polarization rotators and linear to circular converters, but rarely used as circular polarization converters. This letter presents a CMM that changes the handedness of a circularly polarized incident wave. This structure, which presents subwavelength thickness, provides polarization conversion with independence on both the front and back directions and the handedness of the incident wave. High polarization conversion efficiency is shown by both simulations and experiments.