A Superimposed QD-Based Optical Antenna for VLC: White LED Source

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Jul 27;12(15):2573. doi: 10.3390/nano12152573.

Abstract

Visible light communication (VLC) is a versatile enabling technology for following high-speed wireless communication because of its broad unlicensed spectrum. In this perspective, white light-emitting diodes (LED) provide both illumination and data transmission simultaneously. To accomplish a VLC system, receiver antennas play a crucial role in receiving light signals and guiding them toward a photodetector to be converted into electrical signals. This paper demonstrates an optical receiver antenna based on luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) technology to exceed the conservation of etendue and reach a high signal-to-noise ratio. This optical antenna is compatible with all colors of LEDs and achieves an optical efficiency of 3.75%, which is considerably higher than the similar reported antenna. This antenna is fast due to the small attached photodetector-small enough that it can be adapted for electronic devices-which does not need any tracking system. Moreover, numerical simulation is performed using a Monte Carlo ray-tracing model, and results are extracted in the spectral domain. Finally, the fate of each photon and the chromaticity diagram of the collected photons' spectra are specified.

Keywords: Li-Fi; Monte Carlo ray-tracing simulation; light-emitting diode (LED); luminescent solar concentrator (LSC); optical receiver antenna; optical wireless communication (OWC); superimposed quantum dots; visible light communication (VLC).

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.