Visible light communication (VLC) is a promising complement considering the rising radio frequency spectrum congestion. However, photodiode receivers degrade rapidly under high ambient light (>200 W/m²). Photovoltaic (PV) cells, designed for outdoor applications, offer an effective alternative. This work studies the fundamental relationship between various LEDs and seven commercial crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV cell architectures to assess simultaneous energy harvesting and communication. The results reveal that increased PV output inversely affects bandwidth. The impact of PV cell architecture on bandwidth is mainly due to bulk doping concentration and metallization design. Higher doping reduces bandwidth at short circuit but increases it at higher operating voltages. At the transmitter end, higher irradiance levels enhance communication, but this effect is minimal at the PV maximum power point (MPP). Additionally, LED color has a negligible impact on PV cell bandwidth. The highest bandwidth is 215 kHz for Al-BSF(5”) under short-circuit, while the lowest is 0.1 kHz for SHJ at MPP. Among the tested c-Si PV architectures, Al-BSF cells exhibit the best communication stability – from 100 kHz to 10 kHz, while SHJ shows the worst – from 100 kHz to 0.1 kHz. TOPCon demonstrates the optimal balance between energy harvesting and communication for Pareto optimality. ... Read more

This paper presents the fundamental study on the relationship between LED light sources and the performance of solar cell as receivers in visible light communication (VLC) links. Here, different colors of LEDs are modulated with a sinusoidal signal, and the bandwidth of the VLC system based on various c-Si PV architectures is characterized at different bias voltages. The preliminary results show that the bandwidth of such VLC system is highly influenced by the bias voltage, where higher bias voltage leads to lower bandwidth. This means that there is a trade-off between energy harvesting and communication performance when solar cells are used as VLC receivers. Meanwhile, we also observed that the bandwidth decreases as the LED irradiance level increases, and the color of LED (currently red and blue LEDs are characterized) does not pose a significant impact on the bandwidth. The highest bandwidth is found at 50 kHz for a VLC system using a 6-in TOPCON solar cell under 100 W/m2 with 100 mV bias voltage. ... Read more