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Received 10 August 2015; revised 31 August 2015; accepted 7 September 2015; posted 8 September 2015 (Doc. ID 247646);
published 1 October 2015
A 10 m25 Gbps light-based WiFi (LiFi) transmission system based on a two-stage injection-locked 680 nm
vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) transmitter is proposed. A LiFi transmission system with a data
rate of 25 Gbps is experimentally demonstrated over a 10 m free-space link. To the best of our knowledge, it is the
first time a two-stage injection-locked 680 nm VCSEL transmitter in a 10 m25 Gbps LiFi transmission system
has been employed. Impressive bit error rate performance and a clear eye diagram are achieved in the proposed
systems. Such a 10 m25 Gbps LiFi transmission system provides the advantage of a communication link for
higher data rates that could accelerate the deployment of visible laser light communication. 2015 Optical Society
of America
OCIS codes: (060.2605) Free-space optical communication; (140.3520) Lasers, injection-locked; (250.7260) Vertical cavity surface
emitting lasers.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OL.40.004563
Free-space optical (FSO) communications are developed to is therefore expected to have excellent transmission perfor-
provide multi-gigabit mobile applications by using flexibility mance in a high-speed LiFi transmission system [6]. In this
through free-space transmission. The advantage of FSO com- Letter, a 10 m25 Gbps LiFi transmission system based on
munications is that they can benefit from the strengths of both a two-stage injection-locked 680 nm VCSEL transmitter is
optical and wireless technologies [13]. For an effective imple- proposed. We successfully demonstrate that a 25 Gbps data
mentation of FSO communications, however, high-speed data stream can be transmitted up to a maximum of 10 m free-space
access is the key concern of system designers. In recent years, link. For indoor LiFi application, a 10 m free-space link can
the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) technology satisfy the real implementation requirement. Good bit error
has advanced to such an extent that the 680 nm VCSEL can rate (BER) performance and clear eye diagram are obtained in
be designed as an emitter for high-speed data communications. the proposed systems. The infrared 850 nm near VCSEL-based
The new generation of VCSEL schemes is optimized for modu- FSO communications can be employed to replace the visible
lation bandwidth to few tens of GHz. One of the promising 680 nm VCSEL-based ones. However, it is difficult to obtain
schemes is the two-stage injection-locked VCSEL. A two-stage good free-space transmission performance because of laser light
injection-locked VCSEL integrates the optical advantages of misalignment. The infrared light is invisible; yet, it is a chal-
VCSEL and creates an innovative approach of high-speed op- lenge to aim the invisible laser light at the photodiode (PD).
eration. The feasibility of employing a one-stage injection- To compare with the infrared 850 nm near VCSEL-based
locked technique to deliver a 6 m20 Gbps 16 QAM-OFDM FSO communications, the visible 680 nm VCSEL-based ones
data signal was demonstrated previously [4]. However, system are attractive not only for their lower free-space attenuation,
performance can be improved further by employing a two-stage but also for providing easier laser light alignment.
injection-locked technique. A two-stage injection-locked tech- The experimental configuration of the proposed
nique has been used in a two-way passive optical network 10 m25 Gbps LiFi transmission system that employs a
to improve the transmission performance of the systems [5]. two-stage injection-locked 680 nm VCSEL transmitter is
However, it has not been used as a system performance im- shown in Fig. 1. The VCSEL1 (Vixar 680C-0000-G002),
provement technique in a high-speed light-based WiFi (LiFi) with output power/3 dB bandwidth/wavelength range/color
transmission system. A two-stage injection-locked technique, of 4.6 dBm5.2 GHz681.74682.13 nmred, is directly
which can further enhance the frequency response of VCSEL, modulated by a 25 Gbps pseudorandom binary sequence
Fig. 1. Experimental configuration of the proposed 10 m25 Gbps LiFi transmission system and the measurement of the frequency response of
the 680 nm VCSEL transmitter-based VLLC links.
(PRBS) of 215 1. For the two-stage injection locking part, the is compensated for after equalization. For the data recovery, the
VCSEL2 (Vixar 680C-0000-G002) is used as the first injection receiving site generates a clock from an approximate frequency
light source with an injection power level of 4.6 dBm. Light is reference; phase aligns to the transitions in the data stream; and,
injected through a convex lens, a free-space optical isolator, and thus, regenerates the data stream.
a 50:50 beam splitter. The free-space optical isolator has a high Furthermore, the measurement of the frequency response of
isolation of 38 dB and a low insertion of 0.8 dB. Moreover, the the 680 nm VCSEL transmitter-based visible laser light com-
VCSEL3 (Vixar 680C-0000-G002) is used as the second in- munication (VLLC) links is also illustrated in Fig. 1. The RF
jection light source, with an injection power level of 6.3 dBm. sweep signal (DC30 GHz) generated from a network ana-
Light is also injected through a convex lens, a free-space optical lyzer is fed into the VCSEL1. After PD detection, the detected
isolator, and a 50:50 beam splitter. The diverged light emitted RF sweep signal is fed into the network analyzer. Thus, the
from the two-stage injection-locked VCSEL1 is launched into frequency response of the 680 nm VCSEL transmitter-based
the convex lens, transmitted through two beam splitters, fed VLLC link is measured under the scenarios of free-running,
into the spatial light modulator (SLM), and focused on the one-stage injection locking, and two-stage injection locking.
high-bandwidth PD. The convex lens is utilized to transfer The laser resonance frequency f 0 can be stated as
the divergent beam into the parallel beam, and the SLM is uti- g P
lized to focus the incoming collimated beam. Over a 10 m f 20 02 ; (1)
4
(9 1 m) free-space link, the visible laser light with a data
stream of 25 Gbps reaches the PD. The PD has a detection where g 0 is the gain coefficient, P is the photon density, and p
wavelength range of 4001100 nm, an active area diameter of is the photon lifetime. Two-stage injection locking increases
approximately 0.02 mm, and a responsivity of 0.4 mAmW the photon density significantly, which leads to a significant
(at 680 nm). After PD detection, the received data stream is improvement of laser resonance frequency. Therefore, the
amplified by a low noise amplifier (LNA) and equalized by bandwidth of the VCSEL can be improved greatly.
an equalizer. The LNA has a 3 dB bandwidth of 25 GHz, a The frequency responses of the 680 nm VCSEL transmitter-
small signal gain of 22 dB (measured at 25 GHz), and a based VLLC links for free-running, one-stage injection locking,
low noise figure of around 4.5 dB. The data stream is then and two-stage injection locking scenarios are presented in
recovered by the data recovery and fed into a BER tester Fig. 2. For the free-running scenario, the 3 dB bandwidth is
(BERT) for BER performance analysis. The LNA is important 5.2 GHz. For the one-stage injection locking scenario, the
for amplification of the 25 Gbps data stream while adding the 3 dB bandwidth is 12.5 GHz. For the two-stage injection lock-
least possible amount of noise and distortion. The function ing scenario, the 3 dB bandwidth is increased to 26.2 GHz.
of the equalizer is to compensate for the frequency response, This finding means that the two-stage injection-locked 680 nm
and, thus, the frequency response of the 25 Gbps data stream VCSEL transmitter is strong enough for 25 Gbps transmission.
Research Article Vol. 40, No. 19 / October 1 2015 / Optics Letters 4565
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