Terahertz band communications: Applications, research challenges, and standardization activities

Terahertz frequency band, 0.1–10THz, is envisioned as one of the possible resources to be utilized for wireless communications in networks beyond 5G. Communications over this band will be feature a number of attractive properties, including potentially terabit-per-second link capacities, miniature transceivers and, potentially, high energy efficiency. Meanwhile, a number of specific research challenges have to be addressed to convert the theoretical estimations into commercially attractive solutions. Due to the diversity of the challenges, the research on THz communications at its early stages was mostly performed by independent communities from different areas. Therefore, the existing knowledge in the field is substantially fragmented. In this paper, an attempt to address this issue and provide a clear and easy to follow introduction to the THz communications is performed. A review on the state-of-the-art in THz communications research is given by identifying the target applications and major open research challenges as well as the recent achievements by industry, academia, and the standardization bodies. The potential of the THz communications is presented by illustrating the basic tradeoffs in typical use cases. Based on the given summary, certain prospective research directions in the field are identified.