Topological based IQ THz demodulator – TopoTeraIQ

This project aims to design, fabricate and show case the ever first THz coherent IQ demodulator. Relying on heterodyne detection, it operates without mixers or nonlinear components, potentially offering exceptional linearity. Indeed, if 5G handles massive data, it cannot fully support applications like IoT, autonomous vehicles, and virtual reality. As data-rate demand increases, the need for new technologies is growing. While THz technology has the potential to unlock vast new spectrum resources, THz single-channel data rates capacity have stagnated across all technologies in recent years. In a THz transmission links, receiver bandwidth and linearity remain the key bottlenecks. By developing a THz IQ receiver, similar to those used in optical coherent communications, this project targets to overcome these limitations. For that, we notably takes advantage of topological concepts applied, here, to a silicon substrate. Indeed, topological waveguides offer significant advantages over conventional designs, such as backscattering-free sharp bends, high-performance power splitters, and combiners, resulting in low insertion loss and compact devices. The target receiver bandwidth is 60 GHz, compatible with the 69.12 GHz channel width of the IEEE 802.15.3d standard. With this development, we plan to demonstrate back-to-back transmissions exceeding 360 Gbit/s in a single channel. We will use complex formats like 64QAM and beyond, thus, pushing well beyond the current state of the art.