Transmission of signals in the 300 GHz band with a bit-error rate below ${10}^{-9}$ using a soliton comb

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first error-free 10 Gbps transmission at 300 GHz using a soliton microcomb in silicon nitride, enabling robust, low-complexity THz links suitable for short-range wireless systems.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental error-free 10 Gbps THz transmission in the 300 GHz band using a soliton microcomb with simple IM-DD modulation.

Findings

Achieved BER < 10^-9 at 10 Gbps in 300 GHz band.

Demonstrated stable low-BER transmission without FEC or complex processing.

Showed potential for short-range free-space THz communication with high-gain antennas.

Abstract

To address the increasing demand for ultra-high-capacity wireless communication, terahertz (THz) frequencies near 300 GHz are attracting attention as a new spectral frontier. This work presents the first experimental demonstration of error-free (BER $< 1\times10^{-9}$) 10 Gbps transmission in the 300 GHz band using a soliton microcomb generated in an integrated silicon nitride (SiN) microring resonator. While many previous microcomb-based THz demonstrations have focused on coherent modulation formats and operation near the forward-error-correction (FEC) limit, this work investigates a simple intensity-modulation/direct-detection (IM-DD) on-off keying (OOK) architecture suitable for low-complexity THz links and fiber-wireless integrated systems. Although the experiment was conducted in a short back-to-back waveguide configuration, the generated THz wave enabled stable low-BER transmission without FEC or advanced offline signal processing. Analysis of the error-free threshold power indicates the feasibility of free-space transmission over several tens of meters with high-gain antennas and THz-band amplifiers. These results demonstrate the feasibility of robust low-complexity THz photonic links based on soliton microcombs for short-range fiber-wireless integrated systems.