Following the development of basic components and more advanced building blocks, the full potential of the HDLN platform will be demonstrated with applications in communications and microwave photonics. We will conduct data transmission experiments using intensity modulation and direct detection, as well as coherent schemes, with the goal of transmitting symbol rates beyond 150 GBd. We will also use the modulators developed in HDLN to convert ultra-broadband electrical signals to the optical domain and perform photonic-assisted signal processing using the architecture developed in the project “TeraSlice”. To this end, we have started to design novel approaches to couple ultra-broadband electrical signals (bandwidths of several 100 GHz) to integrated optical devices. In this context, we explored 3D printed freeform THz structures that were fabricated by multi-photon lithography and subsequent metal coating (see Figure below). This work led to the following publication, which is available on arXiv:
P. Maier et al., “Freeform terahertz structures fabricated by multi-photon lithography and metal coating.” arXiv:2401.03316 (2024). https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.03316
