Source: People's Daily - Tianjin Channel Original draft
New material research and development scenarios. Courtesy of Tianjin University
Recently, Zhan Yu, an undergraduate student at the School of Microelectronics of Tianjin University, published a paper "Research on the Wide Temperature Stability of Lithium-based Media Ceramics" in the authoritative journal "Journal of Alloys and Compounds" in the industry, and successfully developed a dielectric material with excellent wide temperature stability for 5G millimeter wave devices, and related technologies also have the potential to be applied to the design and development of 6G wireless communication devices.
6G - that is, the sixth generation of mobile communication technology, with the four characteristics of intelligent endogenous, security endogenous, multi-domain integration, and computing network integration, will help human society move towards the intelligent era. Although 5G is currently only promoted in a few countries, it will take time to reach global popularization, but many countries and manufacturers have invariably begun pre-research on 6G technology and laid out the future to rush. In 2020, China's "6G Wireless Hotspot Technology Research White Paper" mentioned that 6G will complete the "massive Internet of Things" and "intelligent connection of all things", and build a large number of interconnected terminal devices on land, ocean and sky.
As the core device in the wireless communication system, the antenna shoulders the important mission of electromagnetic energy conversion, and the carrier of the antenna and other passive devices, the medium substrate, as the "high-rise foundation", its stability will directly affect the working performance of the antenna. Network facilities in the 6G era will be a "space-earth-sea integration" full-coverage network, due to the difference in physical environment, the temperature stability of communication devices is of great significance. Based on this, Zhanyu considered the impact of ambient temperature differences on antenna performance, conducted research on the temperature stability of the dielectric substrate, and successfully prepared a dielectric material with wide temperature stability while meeting the ultra-low loss. This new material is expected to ensure the stable performance of the relevant terahertz dielectric devices in the temperature range of -40 °C to 120 °C, greatly reduce the impact of external temperature changes on the facility, thereby overcoming the physical environment difference problems associated with the construction of the full-coverage network, so that the network experience of 6G users is not affected by changes in substrate performance.
According to Zhanyu, this new material has the advantages of light weight, low loss, high stability, and low cost, and is expected to be widely used in the future in the construction of wireless communication systems in the 6G era. At present, the project has passed the online evaluation stage of the 17th "Challenge Cup" national competition and obtained the "admission ticket" for the final examination of the national finals.