A roadmap for future wireless communications is expected to exploit all transmission-suitable spectrum bands, from the microwave to the optical frequencies, to support orders of magnitude faster data transfer with much lower latency than the deployed solutions nowadays. The currently under-exploited mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectrum is an essential building block for such an envisioned all-spectra wireless communication paradigm. Free-space optical (FSO) communications in the mid-IR region have recently attracted great interest due to their intrinsic merits of low propagation loss and high tolerance of atmospheric perturbations. Future development of viable mid-IR FSO transceivers requires a semiconductor source to fulfill the high bandwidth, low energy consumption, and small footprint requirements. In this context, quantum cascade laser (QCL) appears as a promising technological choice. In this work, we present an experimental demonstration of a mid-IR FSO link enabled by a 4.65-µm directly

Free-space optics (FSO) in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) contains rich spectral resources for future ultrahigh-speed wireless communications yet is currently under-exploited. Two atmospheric transmission windows at the mid-IR, namely, the mid-wave IR (MWIR, 3-5 µm) and the long-wave IR (LWIR, 8-12 µm), show great potential in supporting free-space communications for both terrestrial and space application scenarios. Particularly, the LWIR signal with a longer wavelength has high intrinsic robustness against aerosols' scattering and turbulence-induced scintillation and beam broadening effects, which are the main concerns hindering the wide deployment of practical FSO systems. In this context, high-bandwidth semiconductor-based mid-IR FSO transceivers will be desirable to meet the requirements of low energy consumption and small footprints for large-volume development and deployment. Quantum cascade devices, including quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) and quantum cascade detectors (QCDs), appear promising candidates to fulfill this role. In this work, we report a high-speed LWIR FSO transmission demonstration with a 9.6-µm directly-modulated (DM)-QCL and a fully passive QCD without any active cooling or bias voltage. Up to 8 Gb/s, 10 Gb/s, and 11 Gb/s signal transmissions are achieved when operating the DM-QCL at 10°C, 5°C, and 0°C, respectively. These results indicate a significant step towards an envisioned fully-connected mid-IR FSO solution empowered by the quantum cascade semiconductor devices.

Record 11 Gb/s LWIR FSO transmission is demonstrated with a 9.6-µm directly-modulated QCL and a fully passive QCD without cooling, surpassing the previous bitrate record of DM-QCL-based FSO in this spectral window by 4 times.

We demonstrate a 200 Gbaud OOK link without any optical amplification using C-band externally modulated laser with 3.3 dBm of modulated output power. We achieve below 6.25% overhead HD-FEC threshold after 200 meters of SMF.

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