BODIPY star-shaped molecules as solid state colour converters for visible light communications

In this paper, we study a family of solid-state, organic semiconductors for visible light communications. The star-shaped molecules have a boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY) core with a range of side arm lengths which control the photophysical properties. The molecules emit red light with photoluminescen...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chun, H, O'Brien, D, Faulkner, G, Vithanage, D, Manousiadis, P, Sajjad, M, Rajbhandari, S, Orofino, C, Cortizo-Lacalle, D, Kanibolotsky, A, Findlay, N, Skabara, P, Samuel, I, Turnbull, G
Format: Journal article
Published: American Institute of Physics Publishing 2016
Description
Summary:In this paper, we study a family of solid-state, organic semiconductors for visible light communications. The star-shaped molecules have a boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY) core with a range of side arm lengths which control the photophysical properties. The molecules emit red light with photoluminescence quantum yields ranging from 22% to 56%. Thin films of the most promising BODIPY molecules were used as a red colour converter for visible light communications. The film enabled colour conversion with a modulation bandwidth of 73 MHz, which is 16 times higher than that of a typical phosphor used in LED lighting systems. A data rate of 370 Mbit/s was demonstrated using On-Off keying modulation in a free space link with a distance of ∼15 cm.