Forecasts predict unprecedented growth for the mobile communications sector. Sub-THz systems are considered a solution to overcome the wireless speed bottleneck. A strong potential comes from the THz frequency window, offering unprecedented amount of communication bandwidth and speed, while featuring low atmospheric losses thus allowing large distance communications. In addition, THz wave technologies are also increasingly important for imaging, medical and spectroscopy applications.
Despite such a tremendous growth projected for THz technologies, there is no real large scale integration solution for THz components that would make the technology affordable. The PLASILOR project aims at combining the best of three worlds by bringing silicon, organic and plasmonic technologies onto one common platform to enable a THz revolution. Within PLASILOR, we develop novel devices that outperform the current state-of-the-art in terms of functionality, speed and size thanks to unique characteristics only offered by silicon, organics and plasmonics.
The overall objective of PLASILOR is to innovate a novel plasmonic-silicon-organic hybrid platform that combines the advantages of silicon, organics and plasmonics to offer low cost, large scale integration with novel features such as emission and a linear electro-optic effect. In detail, it focuses on the design and fabrication of novel highly integrated ultra-compact MZ and IQ modulators with frequency responses reaching sub-THz speeds; create novel detectors, sources and THz components; use them to demonstrate novel THz radio-over-fiber links. Novel numerical methods are also developed to accurately simulate and optimize these novel structures.
