Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Centre for Terahertz Science and Engineering,
Imperial College London, London, U.K.
The growing and vibrant Terahertz R&D community is creating major breakthroughs in science &
engineering and now offers the realistic prospect of commercial exploitation for niche applications.
Atmospheric attenuation has a critical impact on free-space
THz applications, ranging from metrology in the laboratory to hitting the perceived 'THz brick wall'
in any future spectral expansion beyond 5G. Moreover, further exploration within the 'Over the THz Horizon'
thermal infrared, in spectral bands that can have relatively low atmospheric attenuation, will also
yield new opportunities for commercial exploitation.
For decades, the atmospheric science community has been characterizing atmospheric attenuation over
be-spoke path links. However, outside of this community, THz technologists and practitioners may not
have exploited the wealth of knowledge and modelling software that exists.
We recently published an open access paper entitled "Predicting atmospheric attenuation under pristine
conditions between 0.1 and 100 THz", in the multidisciplinary journal IEEE Access. This can be freely
downloaded at the publisher's website:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7736955
This entry-level article was written from an engineer's perspective and represents both a mini-Review
and research-led Technical Note. Of practical significance, with different scenarios under pristine
conditions, we show how a freely available and easy to use online software package can qualitatively
predict atmospheric attenuation and how the results from this convenient tool compare with quantitative
predictions from more sophisticated software packages.
About the Authors
Jingye Sun: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Centre for Terahertz Science and
Engineering, Imperial College London, London, U.K.
Fangjing Hu: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Centre for Terahertz Science and
Engineering, Imperial College London, London, U.K.
Stepan Lucyszyn: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Centre for Terahertz Science
and Engineering, Imperial College London, London, U.K.
Contact
Stepan Lucyszyn
Department of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering
Centre for Terahertz Science and Engineering
Imperial College London, London, U.K.
E-Mail: lucyszyn@imperial.ac.uk
Website: www.imperial.ac.uk/terahertz
Posted February 27, 2017
