A Sandwich Structure Light-Trapping Fluorescence Antenna With Large Field of View for Visible Light Communication

Visible light communication (VLC) is considered as a significant technology for new-generation communication. The VLC is supposed to provide high data rates and steady network links, which has high potential in dynamic wireless network transmission such as vehicle-to-vehicle communication. However, V2V network is always dynamic, which needs the receiver of the VLC system to have a large field of view (FOV) for stable networking. In this article, we proposed a sandwich structure light-trapping fluorescence antenna (LTFA). The LTFA consists of a short-wavelength pass long-wavelength reflect (SPLR) filter, a reflected mirror, and a 625-nm CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) fluorescent layer sandwiched between them. Multiple sets of variables of LTFA have been studied for optimization. A V2V VLC (V2V-VLC) system was built based on a commercial laser headlight. The FOV performance showed that a receiver with LTFA provides an incredible increment on receiving FOV, from 30° to 80°, while remaining considerable receiving signal power with an average optical gain of 1.6 for 80° FOV and an average optical gain of 10.45 for outer FOV. With the proposed LTFA, the average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the V2V-VLC system can be improved 49% at 0°–80° and 123% at 30°–80°, respectively, showing promising communication performance.