Experimental demonstration of a transmitter with a 50° divergence angle, 50 Mbps rate, and 476 mW optical power for underwater wireless optical communication based on an engineered diffuser

In practical application of underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC), the transmitter should have a larger divergence angle to make it easier to establish a communication link, besides high modulated rate and high optical power. Laser diodes (LD) are suitable to design such transmitter, thanks to their simpler structure and much faster switching speed. However, it is difficult to implement for widespread use in ocean engineering because of its quite small divergence angle. For this, we present a simple way to enlarge the divergence angle for an LD transmitter based on an engineered diffuser in this paper. First, we design a blue LD transmitter that has 476 mW output power, 50 Mbps rate, and 50 degrees divergence angle. Then, using such transmitter, we establish a UWOC system in a large experimental tank with 13.3 m communication distance and about 0.26 m(-1) attenuation coefficient of water. The results show that if the deviation of the transmitting direction is up to +/- 25 degrees, the communication system is workable. Emission light from the transmitter could cover a 42.5% solid angle of the hemisphere space. The combination performances of speed, angular coverage, and optical power are suitable for ocean engineering. Also, it implies that a light field could be designed by using a suitable engineered diffuser for UWOC. The method presented in this paper is simple and pragmatic, which is useful to reduce the difficulty in establishing communication links and is easy to popularize. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group