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Ultra-wideband fiber-THz-fiber seamless integration communication system toward 6G: architecture, key techniques, and testbed implementation

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Abstract

Terahertz (THz) communication is widely regarded as the key component of future 6G mobile communication systems. Through comparative analysis of some of the main existing technical routes of THz up-conversion and down-conversion in THz wireless communication systems, a novel ultra-wideband (UWB) fiber-THz-fiber seamlessly converged real-time architecture, which utilizes the commercially mature digital coherent optical module to realize ultrahigh-capacity THz real-time wireless communication, is proposed in this study. (1) The proposed architecture employs the dual-polarization photonic up-conversion technique for THz generation and hybrid optoelectronic down-conversion technique for THz reception to facilitate the seamless integration between optical fiber and THz communications. (2) Because of the limited bandwidth of optoelectronic devices, multidimensional modulation techniques are adopted for UWB THz signals to improve spectral efficiency and transmission capacity. (3) An intelligent nonlinear joint compensation technique based on the deep neural network, which can effectively improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the time-varying hybrid fiber-THz-fiber channel, is proposed. Based on the investigations of the aforementioned key techniques, we, for the first time, realize the photonics-assisted record-high 100/200 GbE real-time THz wireless transmission at 360–430 GHz band, the capacity of which is 10–20 times higher than that of 5G. The proposed fiber-THz-fiber architecture can realize the smooth conversion between high-speed THz and lightwave signals. Moreover, the architecture can significantly reduce the research difficulty and development cost, thereby considerably accelerating the commercialization of 6G THz technology by thoroughly reusing commercial digital coherent optical module (DCO) modules, which are compatible with the physical layer transmission protocols, such as IEEE 802.3 and ITU-T G.798. Finally, this study also introduces some potential directions of research and development for higher-capacity, longer-distance, and more-integrated fiber-THz-fiber seamless communication.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of China (Grant Nos. 2020YFB1807205, 2020YF-B1806600) and Major Key Project of PCL (Grant No. PCL2021A01-2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China

    Min Zhu, Jiao Zhang, Yuancheng Cai, Dongming Wang, Wei Xu, Chuan Zhang, Yongming Huang & Xiaohu You

  2. Purple Mountain Laboratories, Nanjing, 211111, China

    Min Zhu, Jiao Zhang, Bingchang Hua, Mingzheng Lei, Yuancheng Cai, Liang Tian, Dongming Wang, Wei Xu, Chuan Zhang, Yongming Huang, Jianjun Yu & Xiaohu You

  3. Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, 518000, China

    Xiaohu You

  4. School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Jianjun Yu

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  1. Min Zhu
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Correspondence to Xiaohu You.

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Zhu, M., Zhang, J., Hua, B. et al. Ultra-wideband fiber-THz-fiber seamless integration communication system toward 6G: architecture, key techniques, and testbed implementation. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 66, 113301 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-022-3565-3

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