Modern communication systems rely on efficient quadrature amplitude modulation formats that encode information on both the amplitude and phase of an electromagnetic carrier. Coherent detection of such signals typically requires complex receivers that contain a continuous-wave local oscillator as a phase reference and a mixer circuit for spectral down-conversion. In optical communications, the so-called Kramers–Kronig scheme has been demonstrated to simplify the receiver, reducing the hardware to a single photodiode^1,2,3. In this approach, a local-oscillator tone is transmitted along with the signal, and the amplitude and phase of the complex signal envelope are digitally reconstructed from the photocurrent by exploiting their Kramers–Kronig-type relation^4,5,6. Here, we transfer the Kramers–Kronig scheme to high-speed wireless communications at terahertz carrier frequencies. To this end, we generalize the approach to account for non-quadratic receiver characteristics and employ a Schottky-barrier diode as a nonlinear receiver element. Using 16-state quadrature amplitude modulation, we transmit a net data rate of 115 Gbit s⁻¹ at a carrier frequency of 0.3 THz over a distance of 110 m.

现代通信系统依靠有效的正交幅度调制格式，该格式对电磁载波的幅度和相位上的信息进行编码。这种信号的相干检测通常需要复杂的接收器，该接收器包含一个连续波本机振荡器作为相位参考，以及一个用于频谱下变频的混频器电路。在光通信中，已经证明了所谓的Kramers-Kronig方案可以简化接收器，将硬件减少到单个光电二极管^1,2,3。在这种方法中，本地振荡器音随信号一起传输，并利用它们的Kramers-Kronig型关系^4,5,6从光电流中以数字方式重构复信号包络的幅度和相位。。在这里，我们将Kramers-Kronig方案转移到太赫兹载波频率的高速无线通信中。为此，我们推广了解决非二次接收器特性的方法，并采用了肖特基势垒二极管作为非线性接收器元件。使用16状态正交幅度调制，我们在110 m的距离上以0.3 THz的载波频率发送115 Gbit s ^-1的净数据速率。