Photonics (Mar 2022)

Sunlight Communication System Built with Tunable 3D-Printed Optical Components

  • Ching-Kai Shen,
  • Wei-Ting Chen,
  • Yu-Hsin Wu,
  • Kai-Ying Lai,
  • Jui-che Tsai

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9030188
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 3
p. 188

Abstract

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In this paper, optical components are fabricated using a 3D printing method. The two following strategies are adopted: 1. combining 3D printing, “origami”, and metal coating/attaching to directly manufacture parabolic reflectors; 2. inserting mirrors into 3D-printed frames and assembling the mirrors to form a corner cube retroreflector (CCR). PDLC (polymer dispersed liquid crystal) films are integrated with these optical components to achieve voltage-controlled optical power modulation. The tunable CCR is used to construct a solar light communication system. Using sunlight directly as the light source for communication is rarely seen. In this paper, we demonstrate a proof of concept of sunlight communication, exploring a new route of solar energy utilization, in addition to electricity generation and heating.

Keywords