title: Low-power communication with a photonic heat pump.
abstract: An optical communication channel is constructed using a heated thermo-electrically pumped, high efficiency infrared light-emitting diode (LED). In these devices, electro-luminescent cooling is observed, resulting in greater than unity (> 100%) efficiency in converting electrical power to optical power. The average amount of electrical energy required to generate a photon (4.3 meV) is much less than the optical energy in that photon (520 meV). Such a light source can serve as a test-bed for fundamental studies of energy-efficient bosonic communication channels. In this low energy consumption mode, we demonstrate data transmission at 3 kilobits per second (kbps) with only 120 picowatts of input electric power. Although the channel employs a mid-infrared source with limited quantum efficiency, a binary digit can be communicated using 40 femtojoules with a bit error rate of 3 x 10-3.
authors.forename: Duanni
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Parthiban
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Santhanam
authors.forename: Rajeev J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Ram
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D006358:Hot Temperature; D006801:Humans; D049449:Luminescence; D055095:Optics and Photonics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D017785:Photons