Abstract-Predicting Atmospheric Attenuation Under Pristine Conditions Between 0.1 and 100 THz

Jingye Sun,  Fangjing Hu,  Stepan Lucyszyn

Calculated color map of mean band transmittance against frequency and fractional bandwidth for horizontal path links at sea level, using predictions from LBLRTM at 296 K over a 1 km path length

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7736955/

This multidisciplinary paper reports on a research application-led study for predicting atmospheric attenuation, and tries to bridge the knowledge gap between applied engineering and atmospheric sciences. As a useful comparative baseline, this paper focuses specifically on atmospheric attenuation under pristine conditions, over the extended terahertz spectrum. Three well-known simulation software packages (`HITRAN on the Web', MODTRAN®4, and LBLRTM) are compared and contrasted. Techniques used for modeling atmospheric attenuation have been applied to investigate the resilience of (ultra-)wide fractional bandwidth applications to the effects of molecular absorption. Two extreme modeling scenarios are investigated: horizontal path links at sea level and Earth-space path links. It is shown by example that a basic software package (`HITRAN on the Web') can give good predictions with the former, whereas sophisticated simulation software (LBLRTM) is required for the latter. Finally, with molecular emission included, carrier-to-noise ratio fade margins can be calculated for the effects of line broadening due to changes in macroscopic atmospheric conditions with sub-1-THz ultra-narrow fractional bandwidth applications. Outdoors can be far from pristine, with additional atmospheric contributions only briefly introduced here; further discussion is beyond the scope of this paper, but relevant references have been cited.