Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Aided Wideband THz Communications: Modeling and Analysis

Abstract

In this paper, we study the performance of wideband terahertz (THz) communications assisted by an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS). Specifically, we first introduce a generalized channel model that is suitable for electrically large THz IRSs operating in the near-field. Unlike prior works, our channel model takes into account the spherical wavefront of the emitted electromagnetic waves and the spatial-wideband effect. We next show that conventional frequency-flat beamfocusing significantly reduces the power gain due to beam squint, and hence is highly suboptimal. More importantly, we analytically characterize this reduction when the spacing between adjacent reflecting elements is negligible, i.e., holographic reflecting surfaces. Numerical results corroborate our analysis and provide important insights into the design of future IRS-aided THz systems.

arXiv commentTo appear in the ITG Workshop on Smart Antennas (WSA), 2021

References in corpus (4)

• Wireless Communications with Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface: Path Loss Modeling and Experimental Measurement
• Power Scaling Laws and Near-Field Behaviors of Massive MIMO and Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces
• Terahertz Massive MIMO with Holographic Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces
• Wideband Channel Estimation for IRS-Aided Systems in the Face of Beam Squint