Terahertz binary computing in a coupled toroidal metasurface

Abstract The applications of terahertz metamaterials are being actively explored in recent times for applications in high-speed communication devices, miniature photonic circuits, and bio-chemical devices because of their wide advantages. The toroidal resonance, a new type of metasurface resonance, has been examined with great interest to utilize its properties in terahertz metasurface applications. This study reports a proof of concept design of a toroidal metasurface that experimentally demonstrates binary computing operations in the terahertz frequency regime. The analog computing of binary operations is achieved by the passive tuning of distance between the split ring resonators comprising the meta-molecule. The amplitude modulation is utilized as a method of determining the Boolean logic outputs of the system. The proposed metasurface could be further optimized for high amplitude modulations and active logic gate operations using tunable materials including graphene and ITO. The proposed metasurface consists of three split-ring resonators, and the near-field coupling between the adjacent resonators dictates the Boolean operations. A multipole analysis of the scattered powers of terahertz radiation determines the toroidal excitation in the metasurface. The proposed metasurfaces experimentally define AND Boolean logic operation at 0.89 terahertz, and OR Boolean logic operation at 0.97 terahertz. Numerical simulations support the experimentally obtained results. Additionally, we numerically report the excitation of NAND operation at 0.87 THz. Such toroidal analog computing metasurfaces could find applications in digitized terahertz circuits and integrated photonic devices.