A 3D Printed Terahertz Metamaterial Lens for Beam-Steering Applications

This paper introduces an additively manufactured terahertz (THz) metamaterial lens (metalens) with 3D phase-shift unit cells. The metalens was fabricated using a conductive and dielectric multimaterial 3D printing technique. The fabricated metalens comprises 22 × 22 phase-shift unit cells with seven metal layers printed in a single substrate. Fed by a steerable 6-dBi WR-06 waveguide, the proposed metalens demonstrates a beam-steering performance over the frequency band of 110 ~ 130 GHz. The achieved focal-to-diameter ratio (F/D) is 1.02, and the beam-steering range is ±30° with a peak gain of 18 ~ 21.1 dBi at 120 GHz. The results prove the feasibility of the proposed metalens in THz beam-steering applications.