Gigabit Wi-Fi [AP-S Turnstile]

The year 2012 marks the hundredth volume for the Proceedings of the IEEE, testifying to the relentless march of electrical and electronic technologies through the twentieth century. It also marks the second year for a new kid on the block: the IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology. The terahertz (THz) band, spanning the electromagnetic spectrum from 300 GHz to 30 THz and mostly unregulated [2] around the world, used to represent a vast wilderness in the field of communications. There were good reasons for that: THz signals required cumbersome, expensive, and power-hungry devices for generation and detection [3]; they suffered significant attenuation as they traveled through air; and there was no compelling need for the huge bandwidth offered by the band. While the physics underlying the absorption of THz waves by air molecules remains just as recalcitrant as ever, making long-distance (several-kilometer) wire less THz transmission impractical even with very high-gain antennas [1], the overall landscape has changed recently in favor of an expanding interest in the THz band for communication. (It may be noted in passing that the THz band is also being exploited for imaging in research, security, and biomedical applications.)