A Novel System for Quasi-Continuous THz Signal Transmission and Reception

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Editor and authors, 
I apologize for the delay with the answer. 
I want to attend that the authors present an interesting approach to generating terahertz radiation. The present method is well described and experimentally confirmed.
However, I would like to give a few remarks/suggestions:
- Authors compared the induced photocurrent of their system with TeraScan 1550. The main metric for a homodyne system is dynamic range, and represented nA values are neglectable small on the final scale. But I did not find any analysis of the dynamic range proposed system. 
Please give an overview of the possible dynamic range for your system.
- There is a representation of only border values in a possible spectrum
Could authors present a spectral characteristic of the system, for example, a table with target frequency and corresponded value of dynamic range for these points?
-Could be interesting some applications for monitoring water content (570 GHz) or determining lactose monohydrate compound (GHz), for example

Author Response

According to comments and suggestions, the paper is revised. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The title of this paper claims that it is "A Novel System for Quasi-Continuous THz Signal Transmission and Reception". The paper fails on two crucial counts.

1. It lacks novelty. A quasi-continuous system which uses similar principles has been demonstrated and described in detail in (1) Liebermeister et al, Nature Comms https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1038/s41467-021-21260-x and (2) Liebermeister et al, JIMTW https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1007/s10762-021-00831-5 , neither of which the authors have referenced. Moreover, the demonstrated performance of the system described in the above references far exceeds that of the system proposed here.
2. The paper does not in fact demonstrate THz transmission that can be used for measurements. There is no spectral data (such as e.g. Fig 4 in (1) and Fig 2 in (2)), and no material measurements. In fact - crucially - there is no THz signal measured at all.
3. Furthermore, much of the paper is merely a repetition of well-known background information on THz generation and detection, Sec 1,2,3.

Author Response

The paper is revised. Thank you for the suggestion and comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors adequately addressed the reviewers' comments. The paper should be accepted.