A Proposal for Optical Antenna in VLC Communication Receiver System

A Monte-Carlo/FDTD Study of High-Efficiency Optical Antennas for LED-Based Visible Light Communication

In high-speed wireless communication, visible light communication is considered an emerging and cutting-edge technology. A light-emitting diode can serve both as an illumination source in an environment and as a data transmitter. Nevertheless, plenty of complications stand in the way of developing VLC technology, including the low response time of waveguides and detectors and the field of view dependence of such devices. To cover those challenges, one approach is to develop a superior optical antenna that does not have a low response time related to phosphorescence materials and should also support concentrating light from the surroundings with a wide field of view. This research paper presents an optimized cylindrical optical antenna with benefits, such as affordable cost, fast response time due to high-efficient nanomaterials, and a wide field of view (FOV). The proposed structure avoids the need for intricate tracking systems and active pointing to the source, but it can also be integrated into portable devices. For the analysis of nanomaterials' characteristics, finite difference time domain simulations are used, and Monte-Carlo raytracing is used to study the proposed optical antenna. It was found that the antenna's optical efficiency varies from 1 to 29% depending on the size and the number of nanomaterials inside. Compared to other works, this paper shows higher efficiencies and wider FOV.

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

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.