Terahertz metamaterials

Photomixing

Engineering

Software-defined radio

Broadband

Telecommunications

Computer science

Diode

Laser

Physics

Optics

Gigabit

Terahertz radiation

Electronic engineering

Schottky diode

Backhaul (telecommunications)

Wireless

Far-infrared laser

Optoelectronics

Electrical engineering

Nature Electronics

Sub-terahertz- and terahertz-band—that is, from 100 GHz to 10 THz—communication technologies will be required for next-generation (6G and beyond) wireless communication networks. Considerable progress has been made in terahertz device technology for personal and local area networks, but there are many applications that could benefit from the large capacity of sub-terahertz and terahertz wireless links if longer communication distances were possible. The generation of high-power information-bearing ultrabroadband signals for long-distance communication is though challenging. Here we report a multi-kilometre and multi-gigabit-per-second link operating at 210–240 GHz. We use on-chip power-combining frequency multiplier designs based on Schottky diode technology to achieve a transmit power of 200 mW. A tailored software-defined ultrabroadband digital signal processing back end is also used to generate the modulated signal and process it in the receiver. Long-range wireless data links can be created by combining a software-defined digital signal processing back end with on-chip high-power terahertz signal sources and broadband frequency mixers based on Schottky diode technology.

Multi-kilometre and multi-gigabit-per-second sub-terahertz communications for wireless backhaul applications