A metasurface-based light-to-microwave transmitter for hybrid wireless communications

TLDR

Signal conversion is vital for communication, sensing, and imaging, and converting between optical and microwave frequencies is essential for hybrid wireless systems, yet existing approaches rely on complex relays that consume significant hardware, time, and energy. The study reports a light‑to‑microwave transmitter that uses a time‑varying, programmable metasurface coupled with a high‑speed photoelectric detection circuit to enable hybrid optical‑microwave communication. The transmitter converts light intensity into two microwave binary frequency‑shift‑keying signals by exploiting the metasurface’s dispersion for frequency‑division multiplexing, enabling dual‑channel data transmission of two independent video streams. Experimental results demonstrate simultaneous, independent transmission of two video streams, showing that the metasurface‑based transmitter enhances metasurface capabilities and opens avenues for new information‑oriented applications.

Abstract

Abstract Signal conversion plays an important role in many applications such as communication, sensing, and imaging. Realizing signal conversion between optical and microwave frequencies is a crucial step to construct hybrid communication systems that combine both optical and microwave wireless technologies to achieve better features, which are highly desirable in the future wireless communications. However, such a signal conversion process typically requires a complicated relay to perform multiple operations, which will consume additional hardware/time/energy resources. Here, we report 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. To illustrate the metasurface-based transmitter, a hybrid wireless communication system that allows dual-channel data transmissions in a light-to-microwave link is demonstrated, and the experimental results show that two different videos can be transmitted and received simultaneously and independently. Our metasurface-enabled signal conversion solution may enrich the functionalities of metasurfaces, and could also stimulate new information-oriented applications.