近日，南开大学天津市微尺度光学信息技术科学重点实验室的龚诚及其研究团队取得一项新进展。经过不懈努力，他们基于堆叠式超构-MEMS芯片并利用光实现毫米波成像。相关研究成果已于2025年1月22日在国际知名学术期刊《光：科学与应用》上发表。

该研究团队提出一种堆叠式超构微机电系统（超构-MEMS）芯片，该芯片能够完美吸收电磁波，将其转化为机械能，驱动光学微反射镜阵列运动，并检测毫米波。这相当于利用可见光来对毫米波进行成像。该超构-MEMS芯片采用上下芯片分离后再堆叠的设计，实现了“介质-谐振-空气-接地”结构，减小了超材料和微机电系统结构的厚度，提高了毫米波成像的性能。

为了进行验证，研究人员设计并制备了一款94GHz超构-MEMS焦平面阵列芯片，其中超材料和微机电系统结构的总厚度仅为波长的1/2500，像素尺寸小于波长的1/3，但吸收率高达99.8%。此外，研究人员还构建了一个光读出模块，以测试该芯片的毫米波成像性能。结果表明，其响应速度可达144Hz，且无需透镜即可实现1.5mm的成像分辨率。

附：英文原文

Title: Using light to image millimeter wave based on stacked meta-MEMS chip

Author: Wang, Han, Wang, Zhigang, Gong, Cheng, Li, Xinyu, Cui, Tiansheng, Jiang, Huiqi, Deng, Minghui, Yan, Bo, Liu, Weiwei

Issue&Volume: 2025-01-22

Abstract: A stacked metamaterial MEMS (meta-MEMS) chip is proposed, which can perfectly absorb electromagnetic waves, convert them into mechanical energy, drive movement of the optical micro-reflectors array, and detect millimeter waves. It is equivalent to using visible light to image a millimeter wave. The meta-MEMS adopts the design of upper and lower chip separation and then stacking to achieve the “dielectric-resonant-air-ground” structure, reduce the thickness of the metamaterial and MEMS structures, and improve the performance of millimeter wave imaging. For verification, we designed and prepared a 94GHz meta-MEMS focal plane array chip, in which the sum of the thickness of the metamaterial and MEMS structures is only 1/2500 wavelength, the pixel size is less than 1/3 wavelength, but the absorption rate is as high as 99.8%. Moreover, a light readout module was constructed to test the millimeter wave imaging performance. The results show that the response speed can reach 144Hz and the lens-less imaging resolution is 1.5mm.

DOI: 10.1038/s41377-024-01733-6

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-024-01733-6