Prospective application scenario for a long-range, high-capacity wireless communication link at terahertz frequencies. (Here, the wireless link bridges a broad river in difficult-to-access terrain to provide high-speed internet access in remote and rural areas. The figure shows key elements of our 100 Gbit s−1 SISO wireless link at 237.5 GHz carrier frequencies).
In communications, the frequency range 0.1–30 THz is essentially terra incognita. Recently, research has focused on this terahertz gap, because the high carrier frequencies promise unprecedented channel capacities1. Indeed, data rates of 100 Gbit s−1 were predicted2 for 2015. Here, we present, for the first time, a single-input and single-output wireless communication system at 237.5 GHz for transmitting data over 20 m at a data rate of 100 Gbit s−1. This breakthrough results from combining terahertz photonics and electronics, whereby a narrow-band terahertz carrier is photonically generated by mixing comb lines of a mode-locked laser in a uni-travelling-carrier photodiode. The uni-travelling-carrier photodiode output is then radiated over a beam-focusing antenna. The signal is received by a millimetre-wave monolithic integrated circuit comprising novel terahertz mixers and amplifiers. We believe that this approach provides a path to scale wireless communications to Tbit s−1 rates over distances of >1 km.
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