A reconfigurable non-linear active metasurface for coherent wave down-conversion

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a reconfigurable active metasurface that converts optical signals into steerable millimeter-wave beams, enabling high-bandwidth wireless communication with reduced complexity and potential applications in quantum and sensing systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel non-linear active electronic-photonic metasurface capable of optical-to-mm-wave frequency conversion and beam steering, advancing scalable high-bandwidth wireless links.

Findings

Achieved 60° beam steering in elevation and azimuth.

Demonstrated 2 Gb/s data transmission over fiber-wireless link.

Integrated optical synchronization reduces metasurface complexity.

Abstract

Metasurfaces can manipulate the amplitude and phase of electromagnetic waves, offering applications ranging from antenna design and cloaking to imaging and communication. Additionally, temporal, and non-linear metasurfaces have the potential to adjust the frequency of impinging waves, driving advancements in frequency conversion, sensing, and quantum systems. Here, we report the demonstration of a non-linear active electronic-photonic metasurface that transfers information from an impinging optical wave to a millimeter-wave (mm-wave) beam. The proof-of-concept metasurface is designed to radiate a steerable 28GHz beam when illuminated with an optical wave at 193THz and consists of optically synchronized electronic-photonic chips tiled on a printed circuit board containing a microstrip patch antenna array. Input light, modulated with a data-encoded mm-wave carrier, is coupled into electronic-photonic chips using microlenses. Within each chip, the mm-wave signal is detected, phase-adjusted, amplified, and routed to an off-chip antenna. Beam-steering over a range of 60$^{\circ}$ in elevation and azimuth and data transmission at 2Gb/s over a fiber-wireless link is demonstrated. Free-space optical synchronization can significantly reduce the complexity of large-scale metasurfaces composed of non-uniform or randomly placed elements, is compatible with scalable architectures, and facilitates data transfer and mm-wave beam shaping, allowing for large-scale high-bandwidth and energy-efficient links with reduced complexity for the next generation communication, computation, sensing and quantum systems.