Terahertz On-Chip Communications With Hybrid Electronic-Photonic Interconnects

A silicon waveguide-based interconnection is proposed for terahertz on-chip communications in the 300-GHz band, featuring the integration of a uni-traveling-carrier photodiode as a transmitter and a resonant tunneling diode as a receiver. The interconnection achieves low transmission loss over a broad bandwidth spanning the WR-2.8 band (260–390 GHz). Experimental results successfully demonstrate intermediate frequency transmission at a data rate of up to 100 Gb/s using 32-QAM modulation, with the bit error rate remaining within the hard-decision forward-error correction limit. These achievements highlight the potential of the proposed interconnection scheme to advance high-performance, compact, and scalable terahertz integrated systems for next-generation communications applications.