Researchers know how to efficiently realize terahertz connections

German and Irish scientists have used lasers and a film composed of layers of manganese and gallium to generate electromagnetic radiation in the terahertz frequency space of one wavelength.

The invention is relevant for two reasons, namely because the generation of a single wavelength in the terahertz spectrum via this method is relatively easy and the wavelength can be well regulated by varying the thickness of the film. Generating so-called monochromatic frequencies or frequencies of one wavelength in the terahertz spectrum is difficult and generally expensive. This method seems relatively easy to scale up for mass production and integrate into semiconductors, according to the researchers at the Helmholtz research center.

The researchers then want to go a step further and build production-ready WiFi modules that can reach bandwidths of up to 100 Gbit/s. To do this, the layers of manganese and gallium must be excited electrically instead of with laser pulses. If that succeeds, you can experiment with wireless local networks. The frequencies that the researchers managed to stably generate were between 0.20 and 0.35 THz, they write in their article in Applied Physics Letters.

With current Wi-Fi techniques using the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band, a maximum transfer rate of 150Mbit/s or 866.7Mbit/s per stream, respectively, can currently be achieved, depending on the maximum bandwidth. Terahertz WiFi can potentially lead to data transfer rates of up to 100Gbit/s. Previously, Japanese researchers managed to achieve a data throughput rate of 3Gbit/s at 542GHz or 0.542THz.

The terahertz band generally includes frequencies from 300GHz up to and including 3THz.