Chu’s Limit—a limit no more

Chu’s Limit, a fundamental principle of electromagnetics, dictates that the bandwidth an antenna can function in has a maximum level proportional to the physical size of the antenna—the smaller the antenna, the smaller the bandwidth, the slower and less capable the communications link. Chu’s Limit has been a foundational law of antenna and telecommunications research since its introduction in the late 1940s, but a scientist at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific (SSC Pacific) has recently, for the first time, exceeded Chu’s Limit in a measured experiment.