Beam-steering metasurfaces assisted coherent optical wireless multichannel communication system.

Area of Science:

• Optical wireless communication
• Metamaterials and Nanophotonics
• Coherent optical systems

Background:

• Metasurface devices offer advantages like large steering angles and compactness for optical wireless communication.
• Current systems often use intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD), limiting transmission capacity and signal quality.
• Existing metasurface systems face challenges with lower transmission capacity and reduced optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR).

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and demonstrate a bidirectional multichannel optical wireless system using a polarization-independent metasurface.
• To enable coherent modulation and reception for enhanced optical wireless communication performance.
• To overcome the limitations of IM/DD systems in terms of capacity and OSNR.

Main Methods:

• Development of a polarization-independent metasurface for beam steering.
• Implementation of coherent modulation and reception techniques.
• Experimental demonstration of a bidirectional multichannel system architecture.

Main Results:

• Achieved exclusive 100 Gbps coherent optical signals to multiple users simultaneously.
• Supported optical broadcasting with a total capacity of 900 Gbps.
• Demonstrated operation over a 2m free space distance with a 20° × 20° field of view.

Conclusions:

• The proposed metasurface-enabled system merges optical coherent communication with metasurface technology.
• Reduced system complexity and cost while achieving high transmission capacity.
• Opens new possibilities for high-performance optical wireless communication systems.