Phys.org May 13, 2022
Realizing signal conversion between optical and microwave frequencies typically requires a complicated relay to perform multiple operations, which will consume additional hardware/time/energy resources. An international team of researchers (China, Singapore) has reported a light-to-microwave transmitter based on the time-varying and programmable metasurface integrated with a high-speed photoelectric detection circuit into a hybrid. Such a transmitter can convert a light intensity signal to two microwave binary frequency shift keying signals by using the dispersion characteristics of the metasurface to implement the frequency division multiplexing. In demonstration the system allowed dual-channel data transmissions in a light-to-microwave link. They showed that two different videos can be transmitted and received simultaneously and independently… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Schematic of direct light-to-microwave signal conversion using a hybrid time-varying metasurface platform. Credit: Light: Science & Applications volume 11, Article number: 126 (2022)Â