A Temporal Broadening-Aware Pulse Width Adaptation Scheme for ISI Mitigation and Energy Efficiency in THz Communication

Abstract: Terahertz (THz) communication ensures the provision of ultra-high data rates owing to its abundant bandwidth; however, its performance is impeded by complex propagation mechanisms. In particular, molecular absorption induces a temporal broadening effect (TBE), which causes pulse spreading and inter-symbol interference (ISI), especially in ON-OFF keying-based systems. To address this, we propose an adaptive pulse-width transmission scheme that dynamically adjusts pulse durations based on the anticipated TBE. This approach suppresses ISI by confining energy within symbol durations while also exploiting TBE constructively to reduce pulse transmissions in specific bit patterns, leading to improved energy efficiency (EE) as an additional advantage of the proposed scheme. Analytical derivations and simulation results confirm that the proposed scheme substantially improves EE and bit error rate under practical THz channel conditions.