Terahertz Heterodyne Communication Using GaAs Field-Effect Transistor Receiver

• Published in: IEEE electron device letters Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 20 - 23
• Main Authors: Blin, Stephane, Nouvel, Philippe, Penarier, Annick, Hesler, Jeffrey
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.01.2017; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Bandwidth; communication systems; Electronics; Engineering Sciences; Frequency measurement; Frequency modulation; millimeter wave FETs; Radio frequency; Sensitivity; Terahertz radiation; Transistors; millimeter wave FETs; communication systems; Terahertz radiation
• ISSN: 0741-3106; 1558-0563
• DOI: 10.1109/LED.2016.2624782

We report the first successful terahertz heterodyne communication using a field-effect transistor for detection. The communication is a real-time transmission of an uncompressed high-definition TV signal at a data rate of 1.5 Gbps with a 307-GHz carrier frequency. The emitter is a frequency-multiplied amplifier chain whose last stage is a second harmonic mixer that multiplies the carrier signal by the data. The receiver only consists of a GaAs high-electron-mobility transistor that acts as a quadratic receiver, and two 20-dB-gain amplifiers, no limiting amplifier or forward error correction were used. A direct communication would be impossible with such a combination of modulation scheme at emission and quadratic detection at reception, while it is possible in a heterodyne configuration. In addition, for the same source power, the heterodyne scheme allows to increase the communication bandwidth from 80 MHz to more than 2 GHz for a local oscillator power of -8 dBm.