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.