近日，北京大学常林团队研究了基于微梳的结构微波全尺寸控制。该项研究成果发表在2026年3月4日出版的《自然—光子学》杂志上。
结构电磁波因其丰富的自由度，为基础研究和实际应用带来了巨大潜力。然而，要在微波波段充分利用这些维度，传统上需要庞大的硬件和复杂的系统，因为每个维度的产生、构建和操控往往都需要不同且专门的设备。这种复杂性限制了结构微波的性能和可扩展性，为其广泛应用设置了主要障碍。
研究组提出了一种利用微梳驱动的微波光子天线阵列对结构微波进行全维度控制的方案。通过对大量相互相干的光学梳齿进行调制，他们能够用一套硬件以可编程的方式同时且任意地操控结构微波的所有维度，显著降低了系统复杂度。利用这种方法，研究组展示了此前结构微波无法实现的功能，包括合成具有超大模式数的涡旋微波、亚微秒级时空模式切换、宽带相位-频率响应调谐、大角度二维波束扫描以及最全面的多维耦合能力。这一突破使得创建结构微波集成传感与通信系统成为可能，该系统为6G网络实现了高达210 bit s-1 Hz-1的超大通信频谱效率，以及能够探测四维信息的涡旋传感技术。
附：英文原文
Title: Full dimensional control of structured microwaves based on microcombs
Author: Song, Xiyao, Zhang, Xiangpeng, Gao, Xinlu, Wang, Ze, Cai, Jiazhen, Tu, Zengji, Dong, Jingwen, Li, Shangyang, Zhou, Zixuan, Huang, Jiajie, Ni, Bo, Xu, Tianyu, Wu, Jianjun, Zheng, Zhennan, Chen, Zhangyuan, Li, Yanping, Yang, Qi-Fan, Huang, Shanguo, Li, Wangzhe, Chang, Lin
Issue&Volume: 2026-03-04
Abstract: Structured electromagnetic waves offer vast potential for both fundamental research and practical applications due to their rich degrees of freedom. However, exploiting these dimensions in the microwave regime has traditionally required substantial hardware and system complexity, where each dimension’s generation, construction and manipulation often necessitate disparate and specialized equipment. This complexity hampers the performance and scalability of structured microwaves, creating a major obstacle to their widespread adoption. Here we present a scheme for the full dimensional control of structured microwaves by leveraging a microcomb-driven microwave-photonic antenna array. Through the modulation of numerous mutually coherent optical comb lines, we realize the simultaneous and arbitrary manipulation of all dimensions of structured microwaves in a programmable manner by a set of hardware, notably reducing system complexity. With this method, we showcase functionalities previously unattainable for structured microwaves, including the synthesis of vortex microwaves with a huge quantity of modes, submicrosecond-scale spatiotemporal mode switching, broadband phase–frequency response tuning, large-angle two-dimensional beam steering and the most comprehensive multidimensional coupling capabilities. This breakthrough enables the creation of a structured-microwave integrated sensing and communication system, featuring an ultralarge communication spectral efficiency of 210bits1Hz1 for 6G networks, as well as vortex sensing capable of detecting four-dimensional information.
DOI: 10.1038/s41566-026-01843-0
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-026-01843-0