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.