Researchers at Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science, under the guidance of an Indian-origin engineer Harish Krishnaswamy, have developed an electronic component that could possibly be used to increase Wi-Fi reception and transmission speed to two folds. The technology was developed by Negar Reiskarimian, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University.
Negar Reiskarimian successfully integrated a non-reciprocal circulator and a full-duplex radio on a nano-scale silicon chip. The technology will also help in reducing the size of Wi-Fi transmitter since it uses a single antenna. Krishnaswamy’s team had been working on this field of research for years and finally made a breakthrough by developing a circulator that works efficiently on a silicon chip.
Krishnaswamy stated that a technology of this sort will allow the transmitter and the receiver to work at the same time and at the same frequency thus increasing the speed.
He also mentioned that the technology could be implied to smartphones and tablets. Reiskarimian further explained that in order to receive and transmit the electromagnetic waves at the same frequency, it is necessary to break the Lorentz Reciprocity. The team built a low-cost nanoscale circulator to break Lorentz Reciprocity that would fit on a silicon chip.
A conventional method to break a Lorentz Reciprocity is using magnetic materials like ferrites which apply an external magnetic field to achieve the desired situation. These circulators work on a similar principle but are small in size and can be used on silicon chips. The team developed a complete system that includes an integrated circuit with circulator as well as echo cancelling receiver.
Harish Krishnaswamy is an alumni of the prestigious IIT-Madras. He received his MS and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of South California. Krishnaswamy is now the director of the Columbia High-Speed and Mm-wave IC (CoSMIC) Lab.
