Non-reciprocal Radio Frequency Transduction in a Parametric Mechanical Artificial Lattice

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel, on-chip, non-magnetic, non-reciprocal radio frequency transducer using a parametric mechanical lattice, achieving high isolation and programmable transduction schemes.

Contribution

It introduces a new design of a 1D artificial lattice with engineered parametric interactions for non-reciprocal RF transduction, experimentally validated on a nano-electromechanical chip.

Findings

Achieved unidirectional RF transduction with 24dB isolation.

Implemented multiple transduction schemes through programmable control voltages.

Validated the concept on a CMOS-compatible nano-electromechanical chip.

Abstract

Generating non-reciprocal radio frequency transduction plays important roles in a wide range of research and applications, and an aspiration is to integrate this functionality into micro-circuit without introducing magnetic field, which, however, remains challenging. By designing a 1D artificial lattice structure with neighbor-interaction engineered parametrically, we predicted a non-reciprocity transduction with giant unidirectionality. We then experimentally demonstrated the phenomenon on a nano-electromechanical chip fabricated by conventional complementary metal-silicon processing. A unidirectionality with isolation as high as 24dB is achieved and several different transduction schemes are realized by programming the control voltages topology. Apart from being used as a radio frequency isolator, the system provides a way to build practical on-chip programmable device for many researches and applications in radio frequency domain.