Harvard researchers developed a chip that transmits data by sound waves

Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a chip that allows the transmission of data through sound waves. It is the first time that the control and modulation of acoustic waves with an electric field has been shown on a chip.

“The Acoustic waves hold promise as on-chip information carriers for classical and quantum information processingbut the development of acoustic ICs has been hampered by the inability to control acoustic waves in a low-loss, scalable way”, indicated Marko Loncar, Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering at SEAS, in the press release.

In addition, Loncar pointed out what is the biggest advance they can achieve with this chip. “In this work, we demonstrate that we can control acoustic waves in an integrated lithium niobate platform, taking us one step closer to an acoustic integrated circuit”, he added.

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The team behind the project took advantage of the unique properties of lithium niobate to build an on-chip electroacoustic modulator. In this way they managed to control the acoustic waves that propagate in the waveguides on the chip. By applying an electrical field, the modulator can control the phase, amplitude, and frequency of acoustic waves in the device..

“Earlier acoustic devices were passive, but we now have electrical modulation to actively tune acoustic deviceswhich allows many functionalities in the future development of microwave signal processing using this type of acoustic devices”, indicated Linbo Shao, a former graduate student and postdoctoral fellow at SEAS, as well as being the first author of the article.

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Shao also noted that they are working to build more complex, large-scale acoustic wave circuits and interconnections with other quantum systems, such as the color centers of diamonds. “Our work paves the way for high-performance acoustic wave-based devices and circuits for next-generation microwave signal processingas well as on-chip quantum networks and interfaces linking different types of quantum systems, including solid-state atomic systems and superconducting qubits”, he concluded.

Research co-authors are Di Zhu, Marco Colangelo, Daehun Lee, Neil Sinclair, Yaowen Hu, Peter T. Rakich, Keji Lai, and Karl K. Berggren. The project was supported in part by the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR), the US Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Source: Elcomercio

James

I have worked as a journalist for over 10 years and have written for various news outlets. I currently work as an author at 24 News Recorder, mostly covering entertainment news. I have a keen interest in the industry and enjoy writing about the latest news and gossip. I am also a member of the National Association of Journalists.