Professor Choi Byung-ryong of Material Engineering develops nano-optical modulator that can control phase amplitude.
- 공과대학
- Hit4641
- 2021-01-24
Professor Choi Byung-ryong of Material Engineering Department develops nano-optical modulator that can control phase amplitude arbitrarily.
- 360 degree phase modulation is possible using two gate
- Expectation of 3D spatial recognition LiDAR sensor application by utilizing non-mechanical beam steering
Professor Choi Byung-ryong of the New Material Engineering Department and research team of Samsung Electronics Institute of Technology (Park Jung-hyun, specialized researcher, and Joo Hyuk, lab director) announced that they have developed nano-optical modulators that can arbitrarily control their status and amplitude through joint research.
Optical modulator can be applied to various applications such as displays, optical sensors, and optical communication by controlling the basic characteristics of light, and recently research on elements that can control light brightness and phase in nanostructures smaller than the wavelength of light is actively underway. In addition, it is expected that self-driving sensors (Light Detection and Ranging: LiDAR) such as robots, drones, and cars that can recognize three-dimensional space using this are expected.
However, there was a problem in conventional nano-optical modulators where the range of expressable topology was limited and the brightness was uneven. As a result, it was difficult to apply in practice due to the poor efficiency of light from the light modulator and the high noise component.
The researchers then proposed a technique (Figure 2) that allows two gate voltages (Figure 1) to be applied to a single nano-optical modulator pixel, allowing the phase to be freely adjusted in the 360° range while expressing amplitude independently (Figure 2). The developed nano-optical modulator is capable of controlling the direction of reflected light and has superior features in terms of speed and durability compared to conventional mechanical LiDAR techniques using rotary mirrors.
Professor Choi Byung-ryong said, "We succeeded in obtaining 3D spatial information for the first time (Figure 3) by controlling nano-optical modulators and sending light in different directions (time-of-flight, ToF), and suggested the possibility of developing ultra-small LiDARs in chip form based on semiconductor process."
The results of this study were published online in Nature Nanotechnology, 10.26 (Monday).