On Channels with Composite Rough Surfaces at Terahertz Frequencies

The paper preliminarily examines the influence of diffuse reflection by composite rough surfaces in ultra-broadband terahertz (THz) communication channels across 300 GHz (0.3 THz) to 310 GHz (0.31 THz) frequency spectrum. At terahertz frequencies, diffuse reflection tends to be higher due to the increased surface roughness and this surface roughness causes an additional attenuation even in a specular direction of reflection (by the amount that is scattered into non-specular directions). Two most famous modeling approaches, Rayleigh-Rice (R-R) and Beckmann-Kirchhoff (B-K) theories are employed to account for the surface scattering and compared by demonstrating the multipath channel transfer function (CTF) dynamics for line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) conditions in a simple office environment. The R-R vector perturbation approach predicts diffuse reflection from optically smooth surfaces (sigma(h) /lambda << 1), whilst classical B-K theory in addition attempts to predict the angular distribution of the scattered field from very rough surfaces (sigma(h) /lambda >> 1). The composite rough surfaces considered in this work have a Gaussian probability density of height and a Gaussian correlation function. Based on these results, it is concluded that the rough surface scattering effects are enhanced at terahertz frequencies and the scattering phenomena show a significant impact, especially in NLoS configuration.