Integrated dual-laser photonic chip for high-purity carrier generation enabling ultrafast terahertz wireless communications

Shi Jia; Mu-Chieh Lo; Lu Zhang; Oskars Ozolins; Aleksejs Udalcovs; Deming Kong; Xiaodan Pang; Robinson Guzman; Xianbin Yu; Shilin Xiao; Sergei Popov; Jiajia Chen; Guillermo Carpintero; Toshio Morioka; Hao Hu; Leif K Oxenløwe

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-29049-2

Integrated dual-laser photonic chip for high-purity carrier generation enabling ultrafast terahertz wireless communications

Nat Commun. 2022 Mar 16;13(1):1388. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29049-2.

Authors

Shi Jia^#¹, Mu-Chieh Lo^#^{2

3}, Lu Zhang^#^{4

5}, Oskars Ozolins^{4

6

7}, Aleksejs Udalcovs⁶, Deming Kong⁸, Xiaodan Pang⁹, Robinson Guzman², Xianbin Yu⁵, Shilin Xiao¹⁰, Sergei Popov⁴, Jiajia Chen⁴, Guillermo Carpintero¹¹, Toshio Morioka⁸, Hao Hu¹², Leif K Oxenløwe⁸

Affiliations

¹ DTU Fotonik, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800, Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark. shijai@fotonik.dtu.dk.
² Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 28911, Leganés, Madrid, Spain.
³ Optical Networks Group, University College London, London, WC1E 7JE, UK.
⁴ KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 164 40, Kista, Sweden.
⁵ College of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, 310027, Hangzhou, China.
⁶ RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, 164 40, Kista, Sweden.
⁷ Institute of Telecommunications, Riga Technical University, Riga, LV-1048, Latvia.
⁸ DTU Fotonik, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800, Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark.
⁹ KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 164 40, Kista, Sweden. xiaodan@kth.se.
¹⁰ School of SE-IEE, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240, Shanghai, China.
¹¹ Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 28911, Leganés, Madrid, Spain. guiller@ing.uc3m.es.
¹² DTU Fotonik, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800, Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark. huhao@fotonik.dtu.dk.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Photonic generation of Terahertz (THz) carriers displays high potential for THz communications with a large tunable range and high modulation bandwidth. While many photonics-based THz generations have recently been demonstrated with discrete bulky components, their practical applications are significantly hindered by the large footprint and high energy consumption. Herein, we present an injection-locked heterodyne source based on generic foundry-fabricated photonic integrated circuits (PIC) attached to a uni-traveling carrier photodiode generating high-purity THz carriers. The generated THz carrier is tunable within the range of 0-1.4 THz, determined by the wavelength spacing between the two monolithically integrated distributed feedback (DFB) lasers. This scheme generates and transmits a 131 Gbits^-1 net rate signal over a 10.7-m distance with -24 dBm emitted power at 0.4 THz. This monolithic dual-DFB PIC-based THz generation approach is a significant step towards fully integrated, cost-effective, and energy-efficient THz transmitters.