Ranchi, Dec. 23: Communications engineers across the globe are exploring every trick in their century-old effort to cram more data into a limited number of frequencies. Here, a professor at BIT-Mesra has harnessed a little-explored quantum property to unleash potentially unlimited communication data.
A special antenna designed by professor of electronics and communications engineering Srikanta Pal promises to improve Internet connectivity manifold and make buffering obsolete. It wields the power to secure military communication beyond hackers can imagine and augment accuracy of disease diagnosis in the world of medicine.
In short, if the antenna does what it promises to do, it is the future.
Pal, now pushing 50, is better known in the global sci-tech circuit as the "telescope troubleshooter" ever since his special frequency bandstop filter enhanced the efficiency of the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, US, in 2009 and another improvised device, frequency bandpass filter, in 2011 helped Jodrell Bank Observatory at the University of Manchester in the UK tap unknown space signals.
Currently, senior scientists at Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are showing keen interest in his new antenna.
"As of now, separate antennas are used for high speed data transfers to mobile phones, radios and television sets. Roughly put, my research enables a single antenna to do all that job," Pal told The Telegraph at his residence in Ranchi.
"In a few years, 4G phones will become outdated. Our existing antennas will not be able to support the demands of 5G and 6G and further generation signals. That is where the new antenna steps in. One can expect a revolutionary change in medical science too. The use of this antenna in fluorescent microscopy will help doctors get a clearer view of infected areas inside a human body and begin treatments accordingly," he said.
Explaining his research, done in partnership with a PhD scholar from Shiv Nadar University in Dadri, Pal said his antenna could generate and pick up helical (spiralling) radio waves.
The new trick hinges on using a quantum state of photons called orbital angular momentum.
A photon can carry angular momentum just as a rotating body does and can even transfer the momentum to small particles, causing them to rotate.
"The research was presented at the world microwave conference in Delhi on December 11. Several scientists from across the globe, as well as those from Isro and DRDO labs, have shown keen interest. They said this was the first-of-its-kind research done by any group in India," the professor said.
A DPhil from Oxford, Pal had earlier enhanced the observation range of world's largest telescope in West Virginia by fitting his superconducting bandstop filter. He also developed world's smallest UWB planar antenna at BIT-Mesra. He was conferred the title of Honorary Research Fellow by the University of Birmingham, UK.
