Comprehensive optical and electrical characterization and evaluation of organic light-emitting diodes for visible light communication

Zahra Nazari Chaleshtori (1) , Andrew Burton (2) , Stanislav Zvanovec (1) , Zabih Ghassemlooy (2) , Petr Chvojka (1)

1 CTU - Czech Technical University in Prague
2 University of Northumbria at Newcastle [United Kingdom]

In recent years, we have seen an increased use of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) for illumination in indoor environments due to the softer light compared with the conventional inorganic LEDs. In addition, OLEDs have been reported in visible light communication (VLC) systems, specifically for applications with lower data rates such as information boards, camera communications and positioning. However, OLEDs need extensive electrical and optical characterization if they are going to be fully exploited in VLC. This paper investigates characteristics of a range of flexible and rigid OLEDs and compares them with inorganic LEDs. We show that, OLEDs have highly linear power-current characteristics, and compared with rigid OLEDs with beam patterns closely matching Lambertian profile, the flexible OLED's radiation pattern is wider than Lambertian. Based on the measured experimental data, a new expression for the OLED's beam pattern, which follows the 3-term Gaussian profile, is proposed. Moreover, we show that using larger size OLED in VLC links offers improved bit error rate performance over a wide tilting angle up to 80° and a transmission path length up to 60 cm.

Mots clés: organic LEDs; radiation pattern; spectrum; visible light communications

Domaines: Optique / photonique

Zahra Nazari Chaleshtori, Andrew Burton, Stanislav Zvanovec, Zabih Ghassemlooy, Petr Chvojka. Comprehensive optical and electrical characterization and evaluation of organic light-emitting diodes for visible light communication. Optical Engineering, 2020, 59 (04), pp.1. ⟨10.1117/1.OE.59.4.046106⟩. ⟨hal-03341212⟩