Self-powered Perovskite solar cell receiver for visible light communications

Self-powered optical receivers are essential for energy-autonomous nodes in the Internet of Things (IoT) and future 6G networks. In this paper, we demonstrate a visible light communication (VLC) system utilizing a perovskite solar cell (PSC) as a high-sensitivity, self-powered receiver without external bias. The device exhibits excellent photovoltaic performance, achieving an effective power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 25.85% and an output power of 467.96 mW under an irradiance of 96.03 mW/cm 2 . Crucially, the PSC maintains a high specific detectivity in weak-light conditions; at an irradiance as low as 5.73 µW/cm 2 , it delivers a photocurrent density of 0.070 µA/cm 2 , which is nearly three orders of magnitude higher than its dark-current density of 0.088 nA/cm 2 . Using on–off keying (OOK) modulation, a data rate of 290 kb/s is achieved over a physical transmission distance of 20 cm in the laboratory. To emulate long-range transmission, a neutral-density filter with an optical density (OD) of 0.6 is employed. Under these attenuated conditions, the receiver sustains a data rate of 220 kb/s while generating 77.69 mW of power. These results demonstrate the device's high sensitivity and robust power budget, verifying the potential of PSCs for long-range, self-powered VLC links in outdoor environments.