Keynote Talk 1

The decade of spectrum centered about 1THz represents a "last frontier." Compelling applications include medical imaging; security and environmental monitoring; identification of toxins and other dangerous substances; and extreme wideband (XWB) wireless communications. Current technologies - both semiconductor and optical - serve this spectrum poorly, for rather fundamental reasons. Scaling will ultimately deliver transistors capable of useful small-signal gain at these frequencies, but full exploitation of the THz band requires minimum transmit powers in the 1-10 mW range, representing three orders of magnitude beyond current projections. This talk will describe the origins of the gap as well as the ineffectiveness of conventional scaled semiconductor devices to fill it. A description of a class of devices that promise to provide the required capabilities will conclude the talk.