Optical-to-Electrical Terahertz Link Enables SISO Communication

A terahertz communications link fed by an optical network was able to achieve data rates beyond 40 Gb/s at 400 GHz.

Many photonic, terahertz, and RF solutions have been proposed to solve the accelerating bandwidth demand of mobile-communications technologies. For example, optical wireless communications (OWC) using near infrared (NIR) technology can support the necessary data rates.

Yet fog effects and dust scattering can cause significant fading effects. Using a hybrid photonic-to-electronic terahertz communications link, a 46-Gb/s data channel has been implemented at 400 GHz by the following researchers from the Institute of Electronics, Micro Electronics, and Nanotechnology and Lille 1 University of France: Guillaume Ducournau; Pascal Szriftgiser; Alexandre Beck; Denis Bacquet; Fabio Pavanello; Emilien Peytavit; Mohammed Zaknoune; Tahsin Akalin; and Jean-Francois Lampin.