The Tiny Chip That Lets Future 6G Signals Pass Straight Through Barriers
Your phone's signal has to cross a crowded world. The next generation of wireless — 6G, expected around 2030 — will use terahertz waves, a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that sits between microwaves and infrared light. Terahertz waves can carry enormous amounts of data, but they are easily blocked. Now researchers in India have built a silicon chip that lets them slip through a barrier almost untouched.
On 4 November 2026, India's Press Information Bureau reported the work of researchers at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) in Bengaluru, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology. The team, led by Dr Abhishek Kumar of JNCASR's Meta Optics Laboratory, with Samina Mulla and Sangram Kumar Sadhu as joint first authors, published the study in the journal Advanced Materials.
A crystal with a honeycomb pattern
The chip is a silicon photonic crystal — a piece of silicon patterned with tiny triangular holes arranged in a honeycomb pattern, mimicking the structure of graphene. Terahertz waves travel along the boundary between two regions of this pattern, guided by an effect called topological photonics, which makes them resist being scattered backwards.
The barrier is deliberately built into the chip: over a short section, the sizes of the triangular holes are changed. In ordinary circumstances that change would reflect the wave back. Here, thanks to an effect the researchers call photonic Klein tunnelling, the wave passes through with very little loss.
The numbers
The team tested the chip across frequencies of 310–360 gigahertz. A single barrier cost only about 1–2% of the signal, and two barriers in a row cost about 2–3%. They built three test devices: a waveguide with two barriers carried data at 48 gigabits per second (Gbit/s); an omega-shaped path with four sharp bends and a central barrier managed 60 Gbit/s; and a power splitter, which divides a signal into two branches, reached 100 Gbit/s. That top speed belongs to the splitter design, not to every device — an important detail, because the point of the work is the barrier-crossing itself, not a single headline speed.
To put 100 Gbit/s in context: a typical home broadband connection runs at a few hundred megabits per second, so 100 Gbit/s is hundreds of times faster. This is still a laboratory demonstration, not a 6G network — building a real network will also need standards, spectrum decisions and hardware that works outside a lab. But every future network needs components like this one: small, silicon-based circuits that can route and split terahertz signals on a single chip.
Why this matters for students
The electromagnetic spectrum is a GCSE physics topic: radio, microwave, terahertz, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays, in order of rising frequency. This chip is that topic come alive — the same waves students plot on a spectrum diagram, now being tamed inside a piece of silicon smaller than a fingernail, using the same wave behaviour (reflection, tunnelling, interference) they meet in class.
If your child is curious about how the waves in their physics textbook become the technology in their pocket, a first lesson in physics can take them from the electromagnetic spectrum to the chips that will carry the next generation of wireless. Book your first lesson
Sources:
- Press Information Bureau, Government of India, "Novel silicon chip allowing terahertz waves to pass through barriers could enable future 6G networks", 4 November 2026: https://www.technologyforyou.org/novel-silicon-chip-allowing-terahertz-waves-to-pass-through-barriers-could-enable-future-6g-networks/
- Mulla, Sadhu et al., Advanced Materials (2026). DOI: 10.1002/adma.75322
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