Small Molecule Based Organic Photo Signal Receiver for High-Speed Optical Wireless Communications

The present work describes the development of an organic photodiode (OPD) receiver for high-speed optical wireless communication. To determine the optimal communication design, two different types of photoelectric conversion layers, bulk heterojunction (BHJ) and planar heterojunction (PHJ), are compared. The BHJ-OPD device has a -3 dB bandwidth of 0.65 MHz (at zero bias) and a maximum of 1.4 MHz (at -4 V bias). A 150 Mbps single-channel visible light communication (VLC) data rate using this device by combining preequalization and machine learning (ML)-based digital signal processing (DSP) is demonstrated. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the highest data rate ever achieved on an OPD-based VLC system by a factor of 40 over the previous fastest reported. Additionally, the proposed OPD receiver achieves orders of magnitude higher spectral efficiency than the previously reported organic photovoltaic (OPV)-based receivers.