Millimeter-wave phase modulator based on vanadium dioxide meta-surfaces

We present an electronically-controlled vanadium dioxide (VO₂)-based millimeter-wave phase modulator. The phase modulator consists of a resonant meta-surface fabricated on a thin VO₂ film integrated with a voltage-controlled heating electrode layer. By varying the applied voltage to the heating electrodes we control the electromagnetic properties of the VO₂ layer and shift the resonance frequency of the mata-surface, which results in a significant phase shift near the resonance frequency. Using the presented phase modulator design, we experimentally demonstrate the highest reported phase modulation of 60° at 85 GHz through a fully-integrated voltage-controlled device platform.