abstract
Commercial light-emitting diodes are a low-cost and energy-efficient solution for the implementation of optical wireless communication, known as visible light communication (VLC). This technology has a huge growing interest, being recently a research spotlight in the scientific community, especially due to the increasing popularity and rapid development of self-sustainable smart houses and the Internet of Things. As the VLC link is free space, big challenges arise in its implementation. To improve the VLC performance, this work proposes an enhanced system solution integrating an optical amplifier. In this context, organic-inorganic hybrids incorporating a blue-emitting conjugated polymer with high quantum yield (>50%) were synthesised and processed as planar waveguides. The waveguides were tested in a testbed scenario, showing a signal amplitude improvement of 2.5 dB, establishing the proposed approach as a promising cost-effective solution for optical amplification in VLCs.
subject category
Engineering; Optics; Telecommunications
authors
Bastos, ARN; McKenna, B; Silverio, T; Carlos, LD; Andre, PS; Evans, RC; Ferreira, RAS
our authors
Projects
SusPhotoSolutions - Soluções Fotovoltaicas Sustentáveis (SUSPHOTOSOLUTIONS)
Díodos emissores de luz (LEDs) branca, inovadores, sintonizáveis e sustentáveis (WINLEDs)
acknowledgements
This work was developed within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020), Instituto de Telecomunicacoes (UIDB/50008/2020, UIDP/50008/2020), SusPhotoSolutions (CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER000005) and WINLEDs (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030351) projects financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC and when appropriate co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership through European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in the frame of Operational Competitiveness and Internationalisation Programme (POCI). This work was supported in part by the Science Foundation Ireland under grant No. 12/IP/1608. The authors would like to thank Dr. Ana-Teresa Marques and Prof. Ullrich Scherf for the provision of the PBS-PFP conjugated polyelectrolyte. T. Silverio thanks the grant financed by the SOLARFLEX project (CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-030186).