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Enhancing Q-factor and BER in optical wireless systems using cryogenic Li-Fi architecture

  • Ritesh Kumar Kushwaha , Rajeev Ranjan EMAIL logo and Pratham Vinayak Sharama
Published/Copyright: December 11, 2025
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Abstract

The study present a comparative analysis of a light fidelity (Li-Fi) free-space optical (FSO) communication system under temperature conditions of room temperature (298 K) and cryogenic (120 K). In this study, both device and link-level performance metrics were evaluated through simulation including, LED quantum efficiency, avalanche photodiode (APD) gain, Q-factor and the bit error rate (BER). Results indicate improved system performance in cryogenic operation with the LED quantum efficiency increasing from 0.5 to 0.7, APD gain increasing from 3 to 5, and the Q-factor increasing from 4.29552 to 6.44374, while the BER improving from 8.55087 × 10−6 to 5.36521 × 10−11. Changes in performance were associated with reduced phonon scattering and thermal noise at cryogenic temperatures, which improved radiative recombination efficiency and optical signal detection. The potential of cryogenic operation enables Li-Fi systems to provide reliable communications while minimizing noise and maintaining signal integrity for applications such as deep-space communication and quantum networking.


Corresponding author: Rajeev Ranjan, ECED, Chandigarh University, Mohali, Punjab, India, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Chandigarh University, ECE department for their support and provision of research facilities during this study.

  1. Research ethics: This research does not involve any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

  2. Informed consent: Not applicable.

  3. Author contributions: R. K. K. carried out manuscript preparation and Analysis. R.R. carried out simulations and analysis and supervised the overall work. P. V. S. designed the study and simulations.

  4. Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: The authors used grammarly for grammar correction during manuscript preparation. All intellectual content, analysis, and conclusions are original and generated by the authors.

  5. Conflict of interest: The author states no conflict of interest.

  6. Research funding: The authors received no external funding for this work.

  7. Data availability: Not applicable.

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Received: 2025-08-28
Accepted: 2025-11-12
Published Online: 2025-12-11

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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