Professor Jongwon Lee (left) of UNIST and Hyungjoo Jeong, the first author, are taking a commemorative photo after presenting their research.
[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] Professor Jongwon Lee's team at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has developed a new communication device technology that accelerates the commercialization of 6G communication.
The communication device technology uses a self-designed metasurface to generate and rapidly receive orbital angular momentum (OAM) signals, the next-generation radio resource for 6G communication.
Professor Lee explained, “The metasurface simultaneously functions as an OAM signal generator and receiver, and after experimental verification, it will help commercialize OAM-based 6G communication technology.”
Communication technology utilizing the physical quantity of light’s OAM is considered an efficient way to use frequency resources. This is because multiple orthogonal signals can be created depending on the number of phase twists (OAM modes) within the same wavelength.
Thanks to multiple orthogonal signals, the amount of data that can be transmitted at once increases, enabling faster communication.
Unlike Gaussian beams used in general communication, OAM beams have a characteristic where the central beam intensity is weak, and the intensity in the surrounding concentric ring area is strong.
As the mode increases, the concentric rings spread wider, requiring larger receiving antenna sizes, and it becomes difficult to quickly separate and recover multiple signals entering the actual receiving antenna.
The research team proposed a communication device technology that can rapidly distinguish such OAM signals using their self-designed metasurface.
The metasurface can generate two types of OAM modes in the E-band frequency range. It also has beam steering functionality to send beams in desired directions and lens characteristics that can reduce beam divergence angles.
By flipping the metasurface 180 degrees, it can be used as a receiver that quickly separates and recovers OAM signals.
Previously, to distinguish OAM modes, the entire wide area of concentric OAM beams had to be scanned, but this technology can distinguish modes by simply detecting the presence or absence of signals entering the detector in a short time. This shortens the signal processing time.
Professor Jongwon Lee said, “We presented the most practical method to rapidly distinguish metasurface-based OAM modes using minimal detectors through our research,” adding, “By adding OAM modes to the metasurface, the channel capacity of 6G communication can be dramatically increased.”
Compared to the conventional spiral phase plate (SPP) that generates OAM, the developed metasurface is thinner and lightweight, and it does not require a separate beam combiner, which simplifies the communication system.
The research results were published online on the 17th in Laser & Photonics Reviews, a world-renowned academic journal published by Wiley.
The research was supported by the Samsung Future Technology Development Project.
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