Conformal metasurface coating eliminates crosstalk and shrinks waveguides
Rod shaped waveguide with two quasi-two dimensional conformal coatings that sheild the waveguide from crosstalk and blocking and allow the waveguide to be smaller. Credit: Werner Lab, Penn State
“Imagine the water faucet in your home, which is an essential every-day device,” said Douglas H. Werner, John L. and Genevieve H. McCain Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering. “Without pipes to carry the water from its source to the faucet, the device is worthless. It is the same with 'waveguides.'
They carry electromagnetic or optical signals from the source to the device — an antenna or other microwave, millimeter-wave or terahertz device. Waveguides are an essential component in any electromagnetic or optical system, but they are often overlooked because much of the focus has been on the devices themselves and not the waveguides.”
According to Zhi Hao Jiang, former postdoctoral fellow at Penn State and now a professor at Southeast University, Nanjing, China, metasurface coatings allow researchers to shrink the diameter of waveguides and control the waveguiding characteristics with unprecedented flexibility.
The researchers developed a material that is so thin it is almost 2-dimensional, with characteristics that manipulate and enhance properties of the waveguide.
They developed and tested two conformal coatings, one for guiding the signal and one to cloak the waveguide. They created the coatings by judiciously engineering the patterning on the surfaces to enable new and transformative waveguide functionality. The coatings are applied to a rod-shaped, Teflon waveguide with the guiding layer touching the Teflon and the cloaking layer on the outside.
This quasi 2-dimensional conformal coating that is configured as a cloaking material can solve the crosstalk and blockage problem. Dielectric waveguides are not usually used singly, but in bundles. Unfortunately, conventional waveguides leak, allowing the signal from one waveguide to interfere with those located nearby.
The researchers also note in today's (Aug. 25) issue of Nature Communications that “the effectiveness of the artificial coating can be well maintained for waveguide bends by properly matching the dispersion properties of the metasurface unit cells.” Although the coating can be applied to a bend in the waveguide, the waveguide cannot be bent after the coating is applied.
Improving the properties of the waveguide to carefully control polarization and other attributes allows the waveguides to be smaller, and alleviating crosstalk allows these smaller waveguides to be more closely bundled. Smaller waveguides more closely bundled could lead to increased miniaturization.
“In terms of applications these would include millimeter-wave/terahertz/infrared systems for sensing, communications, and imaging that need to manipulate polarization, squeeze signals through waveguides with a smaller cross-section, and/or require dense deployment of interconnected components,” said Jiang.
###
Also working on this project was Lei Kang, research associate in electrical engineering, Penn State.
The National Science Foundation through the Penn State Materials Research Science and Engineering Center funded this work.
Media Contact
All latest news from the category: Power and Electrical Engineering
This topic covers issues related to energy generation, conversion, transportation and consumption and how the industry is addressing the challenge of energy efficiency in general.
innovations-report provides in-depth and informative reports and articles on subjects ranging from wind energy, fuel cell technology, solar energy, geothermal energy, petroleum, gas, nuclear engineering, alternative energy and energy efficiency to fusion, hydrogen and superconductor technologies.
Newest articles
First-of-its-kind study uses remote sensing to monitor plastic debris in rivers and lakes
Remote sensing creates a cost-effective solution to monitoring plastic pollution. A first-of-its-kind study from researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities shows how remote sensing can help monitor and…
Laser-based artificial neuron mimics nerve cell functions at lightning speed
With a processing speed a billion times faster than nature, chip-based laser neuron could help advance AI tasks such as pattern recognition and sequence prediction. Researchers have developed a laser-based…
Optimising the processing of plastic waste
Just one look in the yellow bin reveals a colourful jumble of different types of plastic. However, the purer and more uniform plastic waste is, the easier it is to…