Abstract
A transparent Optical-subTHz-Optical link providing record-high single line rates of 240 Gbit/s and 192 Gbit/s on a single optical carrier over distances from 5 to 115 m is demonstrated. Besides a direct mapping of the optical to a 230 GHz subTHz-carrier frequency by means of a uni-traveling carrier (UTC) photodiode, we demonstrate direct conversion of data from the subTHz domain back to the optical domain by a plasmonic modulator. It is shown that the subTHz-to-optical upconversion can even be performed at good quality without any electrical amplifiers. Finally, at the receiver, the local oscillator is employed to directly map the optical signal back to the electrical baseband within a coherent receiver.
Fig. 1. (a) Vision of future communication networks, where THz links are transparently embedded in the fiber-optical network for backhauling and device-todevice applications.