Terahertz Band: The Last Piece of RF Spectrum Puzzle for Communication Systems
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) DivisionComputer Science Program
Electrical Engineering Program
Date
2019-11-14Online Publication Date
2019-11-14Print Publication Date
2020Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/660387
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Ultra-high bandwidth, negligible latency and seamless communication are envisioned as milestones that will revolutionize the way by which societies create, distribute and consume information. The remarkable expansion of wireless data traffic has advocated the investigation of suitable regimes in the radio spectrum to satisfy users’ escalating requirements and allow the exploitation of massive capacity and massive connectivity. To this end, the Terahertz (THz) frequency band (0.1-10 THz) has received noticeable attention in the research community as an ideal choice for scenarios involving high-speed transmission. As such, in this work, we present an up-to-date review paper to analyze key concepts associated with the THz system architecture. THz generation methods are first addressed by highlighting the recent progress in the devices technology. Moreover, the recently proposed channel models available for propagation at THz band frequencies are introduced. A comprehensive comparison is then presented between the THz wireless communication and its other contenders. In addition, several applications of THz communication are discussed taking into account various scales. Further, we highlight the milestones achieved regarding THz standardization activities. Finally, a future outlook is provided by presenting and envisaging several potential use cases and attempts to guide the deployment of the THz frequency band.Citation
Elayan, H., Amin, O., Shihada, B., Shubair, R. M., & Alouini, M.-S. (2019). Terahertz Band: The Last Piece of RF Spectrum Puzzle for Communication Systems. IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, 1–1. doi:10.1109/ojcoms.2019.2953633Sponsors
The graphical abstract illustration was produced by Xavier Pita, scientific illustrator at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).Additional Links
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8901159/https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8901159
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1109/OJCOMS.2019.2953633
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as published under a CC BY 4.0 license
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Squeezing terahertz light into nanovolumes: Nanoantenna enhanced terahertz spectroscopy (NETS) of semiconductor quantum dotsToma, Andrea; Tuccio, Salvatore; Prato, Mirko; De Donato, Francesco; Perucchi, Andrea; Di Pietro, Paola; Marras, Sergio; Liberale, Carlo; Proietti Zaccaria, Remo; De Angelis, Francesco De; Manna, Liberato; Lupi, Stefano; Di Fabrizio, Enzo M.; Razzari, Luca (Nano Letters, American Chemical Society (ACS), 2014-12) [Article]Terahertz spectroscopy has vast potentialities in sensing a broad range of elementary excitations (e.g., collective vibrations of molecules, phonons, excitons, etc.). However, the large wavelength associated with terahertz radiation (about 300 μm at 1 THz) severely hinders its interaction with nano-objects, such as nanoparticles, nanorods, nanotubes, and large molecules of biological relevance, practically limiting terahertz studies to macroscopic ensembles of these compounds, in the form of thick pellets of crystallized molecules or highly concentrated solutions of nanomaterials. Here we show that chains of terahertz dipole nanoantennas spaced by nanogaps of 20 nm allow retrieving the spectroscopic signature of a monolayer of cadmium selenide quantum dots, a significant portion of the signal arising from the dots located within the antenna nanocavities. A Fano-like interference between the fundamental antenna mode and the phonon resonance of the quantum dots is observed, accompanied by an absorption enhancement factor greater than one million. NETS can find immediate applications in terahertz spectroscopic studies of nanocrystals and molecules at extremely low concentrations. Furthermore, it shows a practicable route toward the characterization of individual nano-objects at these frequencies.
-
From Terahertz Surface Waves to Spoof Surface Plasmon PolaritonsXu, Yuehong; Zhang, Ying; Xu, Quan; Zhang, Xueqian; Li, Yanfeng; Gu, Jianqiang; Tian, Zhen; Ouyang, Chunmei; Zhang, Xixiang; Zhang, Weili; Han, Jiaguang (2018 43rd International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2018-11-16) [Conference Paper]Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) promise versatile potential applications in many aspects and thus have been a subject of enormous interest. However, in the terahertz regime, due to perfect conductivity of most metals, it is hard to realize a strong confinement of SPPs although a propagation loss could be sufficiently low. Here we introduce the recent work from terahertz surface waves to spoof SPPs based on metasurfaces.
-
Optically-Induced Dynamic Terahertz MetamaterialsTunesi, J.; Peters, L.; Gongora, J. S. Totero; Pasquazi, A.; Fratalocchi, Andrea; Peccianti, M. (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2019-10-17) [Conference Paper]Summary form only given. Plasmonic metasurfaces provide a compact platform to engineer the wave-front of optical beams by tuning the material and its morphology, hence enabling advanced functionalities in ultra-thin photonic systems. In standard metasurfaces, however, the optical response is usually static and fixed by design. An appealing possibility to achieve ultrafast dynamical tuning is given by optically-induced plasmonic systems, where the metallic response of narrow-bandgap semiconductors is driven by high-fluence illumination. Under these conditions, the surface of the semiconductor can be overflown with photo-carriers inducing a transient metallic state. An intriguing question is whether the transient metallization could be employed to dynamically engineer the optical response and to control light-matter interactions on the surface. At THz frequency-scales an optically-induced metallisation can have an initial transient much faster than the THz-period. The generation of THz fields from semiconductor surfaces is in fact, the result of a complex interplay between photo-carrier dynamics (e.g. photo-Dember) and nonlinear frequency conversion (e.g. optical rectification). A detailed characterization of the THz emission, therefore, can provide critical insights into the dynamical evolution and physical properties of the photo-induced plasmonic state. In this work, we will discuss our investigation of the THz emission from nanostructured silicon surfaces which are characterised by a near-unity absorption across the visible spectral range and are commonly denoted as Black Silicon (BSi). In BSi, the surface nanopatterning is known to induce a strong enhancement of the THz generation under ultrafast illumination, in sharp contrast with planar silicon where optical-to-THz conversion is mostly negligible. The generation of THz pulses from BSi however, is indeed driven by the presence of several competing mechanisms, including transient metallization and charge localization. We assessed the role played by each of these mechanisms through an embodiment of a dual pump approach. In our experimental setup, an ultrashort probe pulse generates THz within the sample to be detected, while a pump pulse photo-excites the nanopillars to induce the transient metallic state. The use of two optical pulses ensures significant overlap between the generated carriers and the THz generation region. For BSi, we observe a sharp transition between several regimes as a function of pump delay, with the emergence of an additional THz generation process upon photoexcitation, compatible with a plasmonic coupling and thus resulting in the observed phase shift. These results hold significant implications for a tuneable plasmonic response controlled via external pumping parameters with applications in nonlinear imaging.