Bridging the terahertz gap: Progress and challenges

Steady, persistent effort has gone a long way toward bridging the infamous "terahertz gap." Advances in circuit and device design, as well as continued lithographic scaling, have delivered building blocks that are suitable for superheterodyne receivers in the sub-millimeter wave region. High-power (e.g., watt-level) sources for transmitters, however, remain to be developed. This talk uses a notional "XWB" (extreme wideband) Tb/s wireless communications link as a context to assess progress to date, as well as to identify outstanding problems still to be solved.