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High-precision digital terahertz phase manipulation within a multichannel field perturbation coding chip

Nature Photonics volume 15, pages 751–757 (2021)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 31 August 2021

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Abstract

Direct phase modulation is one of the most urgent and difficult issues in the terahertz research area. Here, we propose a new method employing a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) perturbation microstructure unit coupled to a transmission line to realize high-precision digital terahertz phase manipulation. We induce local perturbation resonances to manipulate the phase of guided terahertz waves. By controlling the electronic transport characteristics of the 2DEG using an external voltage, the strength of the perturbation can be manipulated, which affects the phase of the guided waves. This external control permits electronic manipulation of the phase of terahertz waves with high precision, as high as 2−5° in the frequency range 0.26–0.27 THz, with an average phase error of only 0.36°, corresponding to a timing error of only 4 fs. Critically, the average insertion loss is as low as 6.14 dB at 0.265 THz, with a low amplitude fluctuation of 0.5 dB, so the device offers near-ideal phase-only modulation.

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Fig. 1: MFPCC architecture and its high-precision terahertz phase manipulation function.
Fig. 2: Perturbation and phase shift of a single 2DEG-PMU with 0 and 1 states.
Fig. 3: Simulation results of electric-field perturbation and phase manipulation of the MFPCC.
Fig. 4: Photographs of the MFPCC and assembled test cavity.
Fig. 5: Experimental measurement results of MFPCC phase manipulation and transmittance.

Data availability

Data are available from the corresponding authors upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract no. 61931006 (Y.Z.), the National Key Research and Development Program of China under contract no. 2018YFB1801503 (Y.Z.), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities no. ZYGX2020ZB011 (Y.Z.), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation no. 2020M683285 (H.Z.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contracts 61921002 (Y.G.) and U20A20212 (Z.Y.) and the US National Science Foundation grant no. 1923733 (D.M.M.).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Hongxin Zeng, Huajie Liang, Yaxin Zhang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sichuan Terahertz Communication Technology Engineering Research Center, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China

    Hongxin Zeng, Huajie Liang, Yaxin Zhang, Lan Wang, Sen Gong, Zheng Li, Ziqiang Yang, Xilin Zhang, Feng Lan, Yubin Gong & Ziqiang Yang

  2. Yangtze Delta Region Institute (Huzhou), University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Huzhou, China

    Huajie Liang, Yaxin Zhang, Lan Wang, Sen Gong, Ziqiang Yang, Feng Lan & Ziqiang Yang

  3. National Key Laboratory of Application Specific Integrated Circuit, Hebei Semiconductor Research Institute, Shijiazhuang, China

    Shixiong Liang & Zhihong Feng

  4. School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Daniel M. Mittleman

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  1. Hongxin Zeng
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Contributions

H.Z., H.L., Z.Y. and Y.Z. conceived the idea of the multichannel field perturbation coding chip. S.L. processed the 2DEG structure, carried out device assembly and constructed the experiment environment. S.G. and F.L. helped with the simulation. H.L. and L.W. performed experiments. L.W., Z.L. performed the data analyses. L.W., Z.L. and X.Z participated in the discussion of potential setups for the tests/measurements, and helped to draft the manuscript. Z.F. and Y.G. helped to improve the design of the metallic cavity and control circuit. D.M.M. contributed substantially to theoretical analysis and manuscript polishing.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yaxin Zhang, Lan Wang or Shixiong Liang.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Photonics thanks Juraj Darmo, Yanko Todorov and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

The Supplementary Discussion has six sections, including Figs. 1–17 and Tables 1–3.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 2

The transmittance and phase response of a single 2DEG-PMU.

Source Data Fig. 3

Simulation results of electric field perturbation and phase manipulation of the MFPCC.

Source Data Fig. 5

Experimental measurement results of MFPCC phase manipulation and transmittance.

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Zeng, H., Liang, H., Zhang, Y. et al. High-precision digital terahertz phase manipulation within a multichannel field perturbation coding chip. Nat. Photon. 15, 751–757 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00851-6

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