10.5 Gbps visible light communication systems based on c-plane freestanding GaN micro-LED

In this paper, 10.5 Gbps visible light communication systems based on a single c-plane freestanding GaN microLED are presented. We investigate the size effect on blue GaN-substrate micro-LED from optoelectronic properties to communication performance. Larger-size micro-LED can obtain higher light output power (LOP), but smaller-size micro-LED can achieve higher modulation bandwidth. An ultra-high -3 dB bandwidth of ∼ 2.3 GHz was obtained by 20 μm micro-LED. Meanwhile, we further improved the OFDM signal bandwidth to effectively utilize the high bandwidth of GaN-substrate microLED, and the maximum data rates of 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, and 300 μm micro-LEDs are 8.294, 8.394, 10.547, 10.019, 9.398, and 7.294 Gbps. 60 μm micro-LED has the potential to balance the LOP and bandwidth to achieve a record data rate of 10.547 Gbps, which is the highest data rate obtained by a single micro-LED to the best of our knowledge. Based on the optimum size of 60 μm micro-LED, extended distances of 0.5, 1, 5, and 10 m with data rates of 10.045, 9.668, 9.277, and 8.649 Gbps are also presented.