Reconfigurable Surface Wave Platform Using Fluidic Conductive Structures

Abstract

Surface wave inherently has less propagation loss as it adheres to the surface and minimizes unwanted dissipation in space. Recently, they find applications in network-on-chip (NoC) communications and intelligent surface aided mobile networked communications. This paper puts forward a reconfigurable surface wave platform (RSWP) that utilizes liquid metal to produce highly energy-efficient and adaptive pathways for surface wave transmission. Our simulation results illustrate that the proposed RSWP using Galinstan can obtain a $25{\rm dB}$ gain in the electric field for a propagation distance of $35\lambda$ at $30{\rm GHz}$ where $\lambda$ denotes the wavelength. Moreover, less than $1{\rm dB}$ loss is observed even at a distance of $50\lambda$, and a pathway with right-angled turns can also be created with only a $3.5{\rm dB}$ loss at the turn.