We propose an indoor network with a sub-terahertz- band wireless link for 6G applications. In our proposed indoor network, an optical hub unit (OHU) that controls the entire system is optically linked to THz remote nodes (RNs) over optical distribution fibers. The THz RNs communicate with the user equipment through a sub-THz wireless link. The function of the THz RNs is to provide an interface between the optical link and the sub-THz wireless link. For downlink transmission, a photonics-based sub-THz-band signal generation method is adopted to take advantage of the broadband characteristics of the optical components. An electronics-based sub-THz mixer is also used for uplink transmission because of its cost-effectiveness and low energy consumption. A digital signal processor (DSP) is designed to recover the original transmitted baseband signal. The DSP provides frequency offset compensation over a wide frequency range and reduces the probability of cyclic slip. The performance of the proposed system was investigated experimentally with commercially available optical/electrical components. We demonstrate 100 Gb/s 2.5-m wireless transmission with a 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) signal for configuring the downlink. The optical transmission distance was set to 10 km, and the power penalty measured by optical transmission was negligible. We also investigated the scalability and tunability of the photonics-based sub-THz transmitter to confirm the upgradability of our proposed indoor network to consider future capacity expansion. To establish an uplink, a 25 Gb/s 1.5-m wireless transmission with a quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signal was employed. A directly modulated laser was used for cost-effective optical transmission. Unlike downstream transmission, a measured bit error rate (BER) penalty caused by the optical transmission was observed. This is due to the interplay between the frequency chirp of the directly modulated laser and the chromatic dispersion in the fiber. Despite this penalty, BERs less than the soft-decision forward error correction (FEC) threshold (2 × 10⁻²) with 20% overhead were achieved. We discuss several remaining technical challenges in real-field deployment. These include THz Tx power improvement, photonic integration, reducing form-factor, polarization insensitivity, and automatic beam steering. Our recent efforts to address these issues are also introduced and examined.

In developing terahertz (THz) technologies that are more suitable for industrial applications, we have focused on research on continuous-wave (CW) THz technologies to develop small, low-cost, and multifunctional THz devices and systems. In the course of this research, we have developed several key devices such as widely tunable compact beating sources in the form of dual-mode lasers, THz emitters, including nano-electrode-photomixers and unitraveling carrier photodiode photomixers, and highly sensitive THz detectors, such as Schottky barrier diodes. In this paper, along with our recently obtained results that demonstrate the enhanced performance of these devices, we also present an example of a practical industrial application of our CW THz system: a nondestructive evaluation (NDE) system. The system described can be applied in the car manufacturing factory as an NDE technique to find process errors. Although further improvements to photonics-based THz technologies are necessary, we believe that efforts in this field will begin an era of THz technologies as a widely used industrial technique.

Nondestructive THz imaging technology is a promising technology in several industrial applications such as process monitoring and quality control. To further popularize the application of this technique in the industry, we developed photonics-based devices such as a dual-mode laser, uni-travelling carrier photodiode, and Schottky-barrier diode that enable the realization of a compact, low-cost, multifunctional continuous wave (CW) THz system. To develop CW THz reflective imaging systems with these devices, a telecentric f-θ lens and novel two-dimensional (2D) beam scanner were developed. A high-speed, low-cost 2D reflector with a 4-sided polygon mirror, a brushless DC (BLDC) motor rotating at approximately 2,990 revolutions per minute (RPM) and a stepping motor was designed to ensure that a THz image sized 500 × 400 pixels could be scanned in approximately 2 s. However, it is difficult to maintain a constant speed in high-speed rotating BLDC motors. The measured maximum deviation is approximately 0.7%, which results in distorted images. To compensate for this distortion, a sync signal reflector was designed to monitor the real-time RPM of the BLDC motor. Using the novel 2D beam scanner and sync signal reflector, the distorted images could be corrected simply, enabling the development of a 2D THz reflective imaging system using a single emitter and detector; this system could exhibit a higher speed and was more cost effective than the existing system. Although further improvements to photonics-based THz technologies are necessary, we believe that these efforts will begin an era of THz technologies as a widely used industrial technique.

Terahertz (THz) waves are electromagnetic waves in the 0.1 to 10 THz frequency range, and THz imaging is utilized in a range of applications, including security inspections, biomedical fields, and the non-destructive examination of materials. However, THz images have a low resolution due to the long wavelength of THz waves. Therefore, improving the resolution of THz images is a current hot research topic. We propose a novel network architecture called J-Net, which is an improved version of U-Net, to achieve THz image super-resolution. It employs simple baseline blocks which can extract low-resolution (LR) image features and learn the mapping of LR images to high-resolution (HR) images efficiently. All training was conducted using the DIV2K+Flickr2K dataset, and we employed the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) for quantitative comparison. In our comparisons with other THz image super-resolution methods, J-Net achieved a PSNR of 32.52 dB, surpassing other techniques by more than 1 dB. J-Net also demonstrates superior performance on real THz images compared to other methods. Experiments show that the proposed J-Net achieves a better PSNR and visual improvement compared with other THz image super-resolution methods.

We present experimental and theoretical studies on terahertz surface plasmon propagation on slit and rectangular aperture arrays in an aluminum sheet. Terahertz waves are coupled onto the plasmonic structures via a parallel plate waveguide.