Abstract
Metasurfaces, which consist of arrays of subwavelength scatterers, can be used to precisely control incident electromagnetic fields, but are typically static once fabricated. A dynamically programmable array of terahertz meta-elements, in which each element can be individually reconfigured to allow controlled wavefront shaping, could be of value in terahertz applications such as wireless communication, sensing and imaging. Here, we show that large-scale programmable metasurfaces can be created using arrays of complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-based chip tiles. We developed an aperture with a 2 × 2 array of tiled chips consisting of 576 meta-elements, each individually addressable and digitally programmable with 8 bits of control at GHz speed, and fabricated in a 65 nm industry-standard CMOS process. The active-circuit-coupled terahertz meta-element structure can be reconfigured, providing digitally programmable metasurfaces with amplitude and phase control, around 25 dB of amplitude modulation depth, dynamic beamforming across ±30°, multibeam formation and programmable holographic projections at 0.3 THz.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Code availability
The source codes for MATLAB are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the support from the Young Investigator Program from the Office of Naval Research under grant number N00014-17-1-2494, the Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI) from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under grant number FA9550-16-1-0566, and the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program grants (N00014-19-1-2525) from the Office of Naval Research and Army Research Office (AWD1006129). We also acknowledge J. Suarez, US Army CCDC C5ISR, for support and technical discussions.
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S.V., X.L. and K.S. conceived the experiments and design. S.V. performed the unit-cell electromagnetic design simulations. X.L. performed the circuit simulations, layout design and chip assembly. H.S. performed field-programmable gate array programming and helped during experiments. S.V. conducted the measurements and analysed results. K.S. supervised the experiments. S.V. and K.S. wrote the manuscript and all authors reviewed it.
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Venkatesh, S., Lu, X., Saeidi, H. et al. A high-speed programmable and scalable terahertz holographic metasurface based on tiled CMOS chips. Nat Electron 3, 785–793 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-020-00497-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-020-00497-2
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