  Taming the Terahertz waves (100 GHz-10 THz) is considered the next frontier
in wireless communications. While components for the ultra-high bandwidth
Terahertz wireless communications were in rapid development over the past
several years, however, their commercial availability is still lacking.
Nevertheless, as we demonstrate in this paper, due to recent advances in the
microwave and infrared photonics hardware, it is now possible to assemble high
performance hybrid THz communication systems for real-life applications. As an
example, in this work, we present design and performance evaluation of the
photonics-based Terahertz wireless communication system for the transmission of
uncompressed 4K video feed that is built using all commercially available
system components. In particular, two independent tunable lasers operating in
the infrared C-band are used as a source for generating the Terahertz carrier
wave using frequency difference generation in a photomixer. One of the IR laser
beams carries the data which is intensity modulated using the LiNbO3
electro-optic modulator. A zero bias Schottky detector is used as the detector
and demodulator of the data stream followed by the high-gain and low-noise
pre-amplifier. The Terahertz carrier frequency is fixed at 138 GHz and the
system is characterized by measuring the bit error rate for the pseudo random
bit sequences at 5.5 Gbps. By optimizing the link geometry and decision
parameters, an error-free (BER<10-10) transmission at a link distance of 1m is
achieved. Finally, we detail integration of a professional 4K camera into the
THz communication link, and demonstrate live streaming of the uncompressed HD
and 4K video followed by analysis of the link quality.
