Abstract
Optical wireless communication (OWC) offers several complementary advantages to radio-frequency wireless networks such as its massive available spectrum. Hence, it is widely anticipated that OWC will assume a pivotal role in the forth-coming sixth generation wireless communication networks. Although significant progress has been achieved in OWC over the past decades, the outage induced by occasionally low received optical power continues to pose a key limiting factor for its deployment. In this work, we discuss the potential role of single-photon counting (SPC) receivers as a promising solution to overcome this limitation. We present an overview of the applications of SPC-based OWC systems in 6G networks, introduce their major performance-limiting factors, propose a performance-enhancement frame-work to tackle these issues, and identify critical areas of open problems for future research.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 54-60 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | IEEE Communications Magazine |
Volume | 62 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 4 Dec 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2024 |
Keywords
- Single-photon avalanche diodes
- 6G mobile communication
- detectors
- photonics
- optical receivers
- high-speed optical techniques
- sensitivity
- optical fiber communication
- wireless communication
- radio frequency
- wireless networks