A reporter recently learned from Nankai University that Nankai University, together with the City University of Hong Kong, has successfully developed a thin-film lithium niobate photonic millimeter-wave radar chip, making a major breakthrough in the field of millimeter-wave radar. This innovative achievement has laid a solid foundation for the application of cutting-edge fields such as 6G communications, intelligent driving, and precise perception in the future. Zhu Xia, a member of the research team and professor at Nankai University, said that the chip is designed based on a 4-inch thin-film lithium niobate platform compatible with CMOS technology, achieving centimeter-level distance and speed detection resolution, and showing excellent accuracy in inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) two-dimensional imaging. The results were published in the journal Nature Photonics on January 27. This innovative achievement effectively breaks through the technical bottleneck of traditional electronic radar in low-frequency bands and narrow bandwidths, and promotes integrated photonic millimeter-wave radar systems to a new level in terms of resolution, flexibility, applicability and integration. Microwave photonics is widely used, including communications, radar, electronic warfare, etc. Microwave photonic radar, as an extension of this technology, breaks the trade-off between frequency and bandwidth in traditional electronic radars. Thin-film lithium niobate materials are ideal for achieving high-performance electro-optical modulation due to their unique properties. By combining advanced photonic integrated materials and processes, microwave photonic radar is expected to achieve higher frequency, larger bandwidth and smaller size in the future, bringing changes to areas such as automotive radar, airborne radar and smart home.