Credit: The University of Adelaide and Osaka University A new design of ultra-small silicon chip called a multiplexer will effectively manage terahertz waves which are key to the next generation of communications: 6G and beyond. Researchers from Osaka University, Japan and the University of Adelaide, Australia have worked together to produce the new multiplexer made from pure silicon for terahertz-range communications in the 300-GHz band. "In order to control the great spectral bandwidth of terahertz waves, a multiplexer, which is used to split and join signals, is critical for dividing the information into manageable chunks that can be more easily processed and so can be transmitted faster from one device to another," said Associate Professor Withawat Withayachumnankul from the University of Adelaide's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.