An All-Organic Flexible Visible Light Communication System

Visible light communication systems can be used in a wide variety of applications, from driving to home automation. The use of wearables can increase the potential applications in indoor systems to send and receive specific and customized information. We have designed and developed a fully organic and flexible Visible Light Communication system using a flexible OLED, a flexible P3HT:PCBM-based organic photodiode (OPD) and flexible PCBs for the emitter and receiver conditioning circuits. We have fabricated and characterized the I-V curve, modulation response and impedance of the flexible OPD. As emitter we have used a commercial flexible organic luminaire with dimensions 99 × 99 × 0.88 mm, and we have characterized its modulation response. All the devices show frequency responses that allow operation over 40 kHz, thus enabling the transmission of high quality audio. Finally, we integrated the emitter and receiver components and its electronic drivers, to build an all-organic flexible VLC system capable of transmitting an audio file in real-time, as a proof of concept of the indoor capabilities of such a system.

[1]  Zabih Ghassemlooy,et al.  Visible light communications: real time 10 Mb/s link with a low bandwidth polymer light-emitting diode. , 2014, Optics express.

[2]  Zhengyuan Xu,et al.  A 51.6 Mb/s Experimental VLC System Using a Monochromic Organic LED , 2018, IEEE Photonics Journal.

[3]  Hoa Le Minh,et al.  Wavelength-Multiplexed Polymer LEDs: Towards 55 Mb/s Organic Visible Light Communications , 2015, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[4]  Wan-Young Chung,et al.  VLC-BASED MEDICAL HEALTHCARE INFORMATION SYSTEM , 2012 .

[5]  The Status of development of Organic Light Emitting Diodes / Organic Thin-film Transistors , 2007 .

[6]  G. Cossu,et al.  1-Gb/s Transmission Over a Phosphorescent White LED by Using Rate-Adaptive Discrete Multitone Modulation , 2012, IEEE Photonics Journal.

[7]  Arnaud Curutchet,et al.  Long-Term Stable Organic Photodetectors with Ultra Low Dark Currents for High Detectivity Applications , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[8]  Stergios Logothetidis,et al.  Flexible organic electronic devices: Materials, process and applications , 2008 .

[9]  Zhengyuan Xu,et al.  OLED Panel Radiation Pattern and Its Impact on VLC Channel Characteristics , 2018, IEEE Photonics Journal.

[10]  Zhengyuan Xu,et al.  A 1.9Mbps OFDM-based all-organic visible light communication system , 2016, 2016 IEEE International Conference on Communication Systems (ICCS).

[11]  F. Krebs.  Fabrication and processing of polymer solar cells: A review of printing and coating techniques , 2009 .

[12]  H. Kawano,et al.  A novel visible light communication system for enhanced control of autonomous delivery robots in a hospital , 2012, 2012 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII).

[13]  Zabih Ghassemlooy,et al.  Characterization of the organic LED based visible light communications , 2016, 2016 10th International Symposium on Communication Systems, Networks and Digital Signal Processing (CSNDSP).

[14]  E. Namdas,et al.  High‐Performance, Solution‐Processed Non‐polymeric Organic Photodiodes , 2015 .

[15]  S. Logothetidis,et al.  Towards the optimization of materials and processes for flexible organic electronics devices , 2009 .

[16]  Harald Haas,et al.  Visible light communication using OFDM , 2006, 2nd International Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities, 2006. TRIDENTCOM 2006..

[17]  Abhirup Das Barman,et al.  Indoor visible light communication with smart lighting technology , 2017, OPTO.

[18]  C. Pontbriand,et al.  An integrated, underwater optical /acoustic communications system , 2010, OCEANS'10 IEEE SYDNEY.

[19]  Zabih Ghassemlooy,et al.  A 1-Mb/s Visible Light Communications Link With Low Bandwidth Organic Components , 2014, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[20]  F. Krebs,et al.  A roll-to-roll process to flexible polymer solar cells: model studies, manufacture and operational stability studies , 2009 .

[21]  Shoaib Muhammad,et al.  Visible light communication applications in healthcare. , 2016, Technology and health care : official journal of the European Society for Engineering and Medicine.

[22]  H. Sirringhaus,et al.  Integrated optoelectronic devices based on conjugated polymers , 1998, Science.

[23]  H. Haas,et al.  A 3-Gb/s Single-LED OFDM-Based Wireless VLC Link Using a Gallium Nitride $\mu{\rm LED}$ , 2014, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[24]  Zabih Ghassemlooy,et al.  Visible light communications using organic light emitting diodes , 2013, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[25]  S. Logothetidis,et al.  On the optical anisotropy of poly(ethylene terephthalate) and poly(ethylene naphthalate) polymeric films by spectroscopic ellipsometry from visible-far ultraviolet to infrared spectral regions , 2006 .

[26]  Huyu,et al.  Organic Solar Cells as High Speed Data Detectors for Visible Light Communication , 2015 .

[27]  Chiara Bertarelli,et al.  Inkjet printed polymeric electron blocking and surface energy modifying layer for low dark current organic photodetectors , 2016 .

[28]  Huichao Lv,et al.  High Accuracy VLC Indoor Positioning System With Differential Detection , 2017, IEEE Photonics Journal.

[29]  Pedro Gómez-Romero,et al.  Nanocomposites based on conducting polymers and carbon nanotubes: from fancy materials to functional applications. , 2006, Journal of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

[30]  Matthew T. Cole,et al.  Flexible Electronics: The Next Ubiquitous Platform , 2012, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[31]  Beatriz Romero,et al.  Visible Light Communication System Using an Organic Bulk Heterojunction Photodetector , 2013, Sensors.

[32]  Sujan Rajbhandari,et al.  Novel fast color-converter for visible light communication using a blend of conjugated polymers , 2015 .

[34]  Sang-Kook Han,et al.  Outdoor Visible Light Communication for inter- vehicle communication using Controller Area Network , 2012, 2012 Fourth International Conference on Communications and Electronics (ICCE).

[35]  G Cossu,et al.  3.4 Gbit/s visible optical wireless transmission based on RGB LED. , 2012, Optics express.