Toward Wide-Field-of-View and Large Area Optical Detectors for High-Speed Optical Wireless Communication

Optical wireless communication (OWC) is able to provide high-throughput connectivity for 6G networks and beyond. A major limiting factor of the wide-scale deployment of OWC is the limited field of view (FoV) of high-speed receivers, which derives strict pointing, acquisition, and tracking (PAT) requirements. In this article, we highlight the potential of designing large-area detectors to ease PAT requirements for indoor and outdoor OWC systems. An experimental demonstration showing the potential of one of the state-of-the-art solutions is presented. We also discuss the practical implementation of large FoV detectors and identify a set of open problems and future research directions.