Breakthroughs in Photonics 2013: THz Communications Based on Photonics

There has been an increasing interest in the application of terahertz (THz) waves to broadband wireless communications. In particular, use of frequencies above 275 GHz is one of the big concerns among radio scientists and engineers, because these frequency bands have not yet been allocated at specific active services, and there is a possibility to employ extremely large bandwidths for ultrabroadband wireless communications. Introduction of photonics technologies for signal generation, modulation, and detection is effective not only to enhance the bandwidth and/or the data rate but also to combine fiber-optic and wireless networks. This paper reviews recent progress in THz wireless communications using telecom-based photonics technologies towards 100 Gb/s.