Terahertz-chip-scale Systems for Intelligent Sensing and 6G Communication

Silicon-based Terahertz systems is a field that is only about a decade old. In this time, we have seen a phenomenal growth of silicon systems operating at THz frequencies for a wide range of applications in sensing, imaging and communication. It can be argued that both the ‘THz gap’ and the ‘technology and applications gap’ is closing in meaningful ways in the THz range. Technologies beyond 100 GHz focusing on sensing, imaging and wireless back-haul links are getting attractive as we enter into a new area of highly dense network of autonomous systems requiring ultra-high speed and reliable links. 

In order to move beyond this inflection point as Moore’s law continue to slow, We will discuss why we need to look beyond the classical ‘device’-level metrics of efficiency and sensitivity of THz sources and detectors towards holistic ‘system’ level properties such as scalability and programmability.