Nano meta components for electronic smart wireless systems

Introduction

New communications and radar systems require small and tunable high-frequency devices, since their backbone is the Internet of Things (IoT). The need for ultrafast, low-energy-consumption information processing of an exponentially increasing data volume will lead to global mobile traffic reaching 4394 EB by 2030, thus starting the 6G era (data rate up to 1 Tb/s) of an ubiquitous virtual existence.

Current Applications

In today's wireless applications, radar sensors play one of the major roles. Due to the increased need for higher sensitivity and non-destructive inspection systems, the frequency of the radar sensors has reached up to 300 GHz on silicon-based technologies.

On the other side, 60 GHz radar sensing is considered one of the main products for:

• Smart home applications
• Non-destructive material classification
• Monitoring vital signals
• All IoT applications that need micro-motion detection

Market Challenges

The market penetration for these sensors is now hampered by:

1. The limited antenna performance (mainly for the 300 GHz case)
2. The frequency selectivity and tunability (mainly for the 60 GHz case)

Proposed Solution

SMARTWAY proposes novel architectures based on new paradigms that exhibit a significant decrease in energy consumption while improving speed/performance and miniaturization. The disruptive nature of the targeted approach relies on progress towards the wafer-scale integration of:

• Two-dimensional (2D) materials
• Metamaterials (MMs)
• Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)

This integration is aimed at developing radar sensors suitable for IoT sensing applications at both millimeter-waves (i.e., 24-60 GHz) and THz frequencies (i.e., 240-300 GHz).

Expected Outcomes

The final outcomes of the project will be two demonstrators, apt to provide industry-compatible solutions for radar sensor technologies. For the first time, the nanotechnological paradigms of 2D materials and CNTs will be harmonized with the MM concept, thus producing brand-new designs of large-scale complete systems with an emphasis on compatibility and integration of different materials/technologies.