Quantum-Enabled Spintronic "Small" Antennas

Abstract

Antennas transmit information wirelessly from one location to another via electromagnetic waves. Miniaturizing them, however, is challenging since the radiation efficiencies of all traditional antennas, based on the principles of classical electromagnetics, plummet when their dimensions are shrunk to tiny fractions of the radiated wavelength. Lately, a new generation of antennas whose operations are underpinned by non-classical principles have been demonstrated and they can overcome this limitation. This enables embedded applications that were hitherto inaccessible. In addition, beam steering, which normally requires a large phased array (multiple antenna elements each much larger than the wavelength), can now be accomplished with a single element much smaller than the wavelength. Some of these antennas also have stealth attributes for secure and covert communication, which makes this new genre a disruptive new technology.