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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Data availability
Data are available from the corresponding authors upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.
Change history
31 August 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00874-z
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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.).
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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.
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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.
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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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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00851-6
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