A layered liquid crystal metastructure with polarization encoding and information encryption functions

Encoding and encryption are essential parts of information transmission based on electromagnetic (EM) waves, where the traditional methods related to encoding and encryption often need complex structures like special-shaped channels and unit arrays. To reduce the limitation of mass manufacture of encoding and encryption devices, a layered metastructure (LM), based on the interference of EM waves, is designed for the function of encoding and encryption, which is composed of indium arsenide (InAs) and E7 liquid crystal (LC). Assuming the phase difference between EM waves, elected as linear polarization waves, incident from the front and back terms of the LM as ΔΦ, the magnetic field B (0.8 or 3.30 T) and ΔΦ (180° of 9°) can serve as the first and second input logic levels to control the certain polarization conversion in the range of 15.733–16.095 Terahertz (THz), where the InAs has the tunability of the B. By the combinations of the logic levels, an information relationship is established between the external parameters and output polarization forms. When the supersaturation bias voltage (190 V) is applied, the long axis in E7 LC will be rotated, meaning that the correspondence relationship between logic levels and polarization output is destroyed to obtain the effect of encryption in the coverage of 15.733–16.095 THz. Therefore, the proposed LM can realize the function of encoding and encryption with excellent application possibility and value, benefiting the mass production of encoding and encryption devices of EM waves.