LED Modulation Characteristics in a Visible-Light Communication System

Abstract

This paper conducts a research on modulation characteristics of blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) used in a visible-light communication (VLC) system. Through analysis of the modulation characteristics of LEDs with different emitting sizes, we find that there is a similar linear relationship between LED's 3dB bandwidth and the operation current density. This experiment also shows that high series resistance is one major issue that limits our LED's modulation speed. To further improve the LED bandwidth, the resistance can be reduced by optimizing device layout as well as reducing material bulk resistance. Clearly, this study provides an approach to increase the modulation bandwidth of GaN-based LEDs for VLC systems.