  Holographic multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications are widely
recognized as a promising candidate for the next-generation air interface. With
holographic MIMO surface, the number of the spatial degrees-of-freedom (DoFs)
considerably increases and also significantly varies as the user moves. To
fully employ the large and varying number of spatial DoFs, the number of
equipped RF chains has to be larger than or equal to the largest number of
spatial DoFs. However, this causes much waste as radio frequency (RF) chains
(especially the transmit RF chains) are costly and power-hungry. To avoid the
heavy burden, this paper investigates green holographic MIMO communications
with a few transmit RF chains under an electromagnetic-based communication
model. We not only look at the fundamental capacity limits but also propose an
effective transmission, namely non-uniform holographic pattern modulation
(NUHPM), to achieve the capacity limit in the high signal-to-noise (SNR)
regime. The analytical result sheds light on the green evaluation of MIMO
communications, which can be realized by increasing the size of the antenna
aperture without increasing the number of transmit RF chains. Numerical results
are provided to verify our analysis and to show the great performance gain by
employing the additional spatial DoFs as modulation resources.
