2018 Asia Communications and Photonics Conference (ACP)

An InGaN micro-LED based photodetector array for

high-speed parallel visible light communication
Xiaoyan Liu, Runze Lin, Zeyuan Qian, Honglan Chen, Xiaojie Zhou, Gufan Zhou, Xugao Cui, Xiaolin Zhou, Lirong Zheng, Ran
Liu and Pengfei Tian*
Institute for Electric Light Sources, School of Information Science and Technology, Engineering Research Center of Advanced
Lighting Technology, and Academy of Engineering and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China
Email: [email protected]

Abstract—An InGaN micro-LED (μLED) array acting as resulting from the high bandwidth of the μLEDs, in
photodetector receivers (referred as μLED-based PDs) was comparison with the broad-area LEDs. However, most
first proposed and experimentally demonstrated for high- studies focused on the μLEDs as the transmitters [2, 10-12].
speed parallel visible light communication (VLC) using 405 Recently, Ho et al. demonstrated the micro-photodetector
nm violet laser diodes (LDs) as transmitters. We studied the (μPD) for VLC, where single μPD was studied [13]. In our
optoelectronic characteristics of the μLEDs-based PDs with study, we first proposed and experimentally demonstrated
various diameters of 100 μm, 60 μm and 40 μm and the μLED-based PD arrays with LDs as the transmitters, and
parallel communication characteristics using the μLED-based
demonstrated the potential of the system for ultra-high-speed
PD array. With on-off keying (OOK) modulation scheme, the
corresponding maximum data rates of 180 Mbps, 175 Mbps parallel VLC.
and 185 Mbps at a distance of about 1 m were obtained with
II. EXPERIMENTS
BERs of 3.5 × 10-3, 3.7 × 10-3 and 3.5 × 10-3, respectively.
Fig. 1 shows the photographs of the experimental setup of
Keywords—Micro-LED (μLED), visible light communication, the InGaN μLED-based PD arrays for the high-speed parallel
photodetector array, multiple-input and multi-output (MIMO) communication using the OOK modulation scheme. The
transmission distance is around 1 m. In our demonstration,
I. INTRODUCTION
the two 405 nm LDs (magnified photograph in inset on the
The demands on wireless communication is left side of Fig. 1) were used as transmitters owning to the
unprecedented increasing, as the traditional communication small beam divergence of the LDs. Our proposed GaN-based
based on the limited RF spectrum, e.g. third/fourth generation μLEDs were employed as the photodetectors. The μLED has
(3G/4G), faces challenges to support increasing need of high- a conventional p-i-n structure, similar to previous reports
speed communication [1]. Therefore, new wireless [11,12,14]. The violet-emitting light beams from the 405 nm
transmission techniques need to be exploited. Optical LDs were collimated by the two transmitter lenses (Tx lenses)
wireless communication has demonstrated the advantages of and transmitted through a 1 m free-space distance. And then
free license, high security, high privacy and high immunity to the transmitted lights were aligned to the μLED-based PD
electromagnetic interference [2]. Due to the rapid arrays, which converted the received optical signal into the
improvement of solid-state lighting technology, particularly electrical signal. The electrical signal was used to measure
the remarkable achievements in the gallium nitride (GaN)- optoelectronic characteristics, and also could be processed by
based LED technique [3], visible light communication (VLC) the bit-error detector or oscilloscope to evaluate the VLC
based on the LEDs has attracted significant interest as the performances including the bit-error rate (BER) and eye
LEDs can provide illumination and communication diagram. The optical microscopic image presents the layout
simultaneously, which could be applied in many application of the μLEDs in the middle of Fig. 1. The inset on the right
scenarios including high-accuracy positioning, indoor side in Fig. 1 displays the received light spots from the LDs
communication, internet of vehicles, and underwater wireless imaged to the μLED-based PD arrays, which shows well-
optical communication (UWOC) [4-6]. However, one of the aligned beams to different μLED-based PD pixels, to
technical challenges is that the low modulation bandwidth minimize the interference between different VLC channels.
(several MHz) of commercial high-power LEDs limits the
achievable data rate. In order to overcome such problem,
great efforts have been made to improve the modulation
bandwidth and furthermore the data rate. For instance,
researchers have used the blue filter to filter out the slow-
response phosphorescent light [7], equalization techniques
including pre-equalization and post-equalization [8-9], and
novel high-bandwidth micro-LED (μLED) allowing the data
rate up to 10 Gbps using a single violet-μLED [10].
With the developments of the GaN-based μLEDs, the
researches on VLC based on the μLEDs have drawn Fig. 1. Images of the high-speed parallel visible light communication using a
GaN-based μLED array as a photodetector array. Insets: magnified LDs
worldwide interest because of the enabled high-speed VLC transmitter and received light spots.

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 2018 Asia Communications and Photonics Conference (ACP)

III. RESULTS and DISCUSSIONS

100 μm 60 μm 40 μm
10-3 2 2
11 W/cm 11 W/cm 10 -4 11 W/cm2
10-4
10-4

10-5 10-5
Current (A)

10-5

10-6 10-6 10-6

Fig. 3. Eye diagram at a data rate of 89 Mbps for a μLED-based PD with

60 μm.
10 -13 Dark 10 -13
Dark 10 -13 Dark
IV. CONCLUSIONS
-4 -2 0 2 4 -4 -2 0 2 4 -4 -2 0 2 4
Voltage (V) Voltage (V) Voltage (V) The InGaN μLEDs-based PD arrays enabled high-speed
Fig. 2. I-V characteristics of the μLED-based PDs with different diameters of parallel VLC have been proposed and experimentally
100 μm, 60 μm and 40 μm, respectively, without external illumination and
under illumination at a LD’s power density of 11 W/cm2. demonstrated. Optoelectronic properties and VLC
performances were investigated. For different μLED-based
Fig. 2 shows the current versus voltage (I-V) PDs with diameters of 100 μm, 60 μm and 40 μm,
characteristics of the μLED-based PDs, which was measured respectively, the corresponding data rates of 180 Mbps, 175
using a Keithley 2614B current source. In order to well
Mbps and 185 Mbps were achieved with BERs of 3.5 10-3,
evaluate the optoelectronic performance, the μLED-based
3.7 10-3 and 3.5 10-3, respectively. The obtained results
PDs with different diameters were investigated. For different
suggest the potential of μLED-based PD arrays for ultra-high-
μLED-based PDs with diameters of 100 μm, 60 μm and 40
speed VLC.
μm, the measured I-V characteristics without illumination
and with illumination at a power density of 11 W/cm2 are ACKNOWLEDGMENT
shown in Fig. 2. It can be observed that dark currents of
This research was sponsored by National Natural Science
several 10-12 A at the inverse bias of -5 V were obtained for
Foundation of China (NSFC) (61705041 and 61571135),
all measured μLED-based PDs. The low dark current is
Shanghai Sailing Program 17YF1429100, and National Key
beneficial to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the
Research and Development Program of China
VLC system. Furthermore, the measured photocurrents range
(2017YFB0403603).
from several 10-5 A to several 10-4 A for μLED-based PDs
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