In the nearest decades, the rapidly increasing demand of wireless connectivity has resulted in the ubiquitous deployment of wireless systems as well as heavily congested wireless spectrum. Owing to the various inherent advantages, such as spectral and bandwidth relief, no healthy concern, high security, low cost, and low interference with Radio Frequency (RF) waves, visible light communication (VLC) has been an emerging optical wireless data transmission approach that can act as a good complement to and substitute for Radio Frequency. How to achieve a high-speed data transmission is a key problem to be solved in the VLC system. This review mainly focuses on the enabling technologies for high-speed VLC systems, including novel transmitter architectures, blue filters and advanced modulation, and equalization technologies. And the inherent advantages, potential applications, and some issues of VLC that need further study are presented as well. Finally, a comprehensive survey on the recent developments and the key contributions by research groups involved in the field of high-speed VLC is provided.

In this paper, one kind of helix-like chiral metamaterial which can be realized by multiple conventional lithography or electron beam lithographic techniques is proposed to have a broadband bianisotropic optical response analogous to helical metamaterials. On the basis of twisted metamaterials, via tailoring the relative orientation within the lattice, the anisotropy of arcs is converted into magneto-electric coupling of closely spaced arc pairs, which leads to a broad bianisotropic optical response. By connecting the adjacent upper and lower arcs, the coupling of metasurface pairs is transformed into the coupling of the three-dimensional inclusions, and provides a much broader and higher bianisotropic optical response. For only a four-layer helix-like metamaterial, the maximum extinction ratio can reach 19.7. The operation band is in the wavelength range of 4.69 μm to 8.98 μm with an average extinction ratio of 6.9. And the transmittance for selective polarization is above 0.8 in the entire operation band. Such a structure is a promising candidate for integratable and scalable broadband circular polarizers, especially it has great potential to act as a broadband circular micropolarizer in the field of the full-Stokes division of focal plane polarimeters.

Thermal radiation with narrow bandwidth and well-defined emission directions is highly sought after for a variety of applications, ranging from infrared sensing and thermal imaging to thermophotovoltaics. Here, a large-area (4-inch-diameter) long-wavelength infrared thermal emitter is presented, which is spectrally selective, highly directional, and easily fabricated. The basic structure of the proposed thermal emitter is composed of a truncated one-dimensional photonic crystal and a continuous metallic film separated by a dielectric spacer. Experimental results show that the emitter exhibits a narrowband thermal emittance peak of 92% in the normal direction at the wavenumber of 943.4 cm⁻¹ with a bandwidth of 12.5 cm⁻¹ and a narrow angular emission lobe with a limited solid angle of 0.325 sr (0.115 sr) for s (p) polarization. Numerical simulation analyses are performed to corroborate the experimental observations. Temporal coupled-mode theory combined with transfer matrix method is employed to analytically investigate the emission properties of the structure, which not only can be used to understand the experimental results, but also plays a certain guidance role in designing a thermal emitter with the desired properties. The present thermal emitter can be implemented for thermal photonics management, allowing applications in thermal imaging and medical systems, etc.

In this paper, a three-layered sandwiched metamaterial is proposed to achieve giant and broadband asymmetric transmission of circularly polarized waves at the near-infrared communication band. The metamaterial consists of two layers of identical 45° tilted chiral S-shaped metasurfaces sandwiched with a subwavelength metallic grating. Based on the delicate combination of broadband polarization conversion and a cavity-enhanced effect, the asymmetric parameter can reach a maximum value of 0.87 and over 0.6 in a wide range from 1.2 to 2.0 μm, which has not been found in previous reports. Furthermore, a perfect robustness to misalignments is obtained as the effect originated from function-independent cascading cavities, which effectively reduce the requirement of alignment precision in layer-by-layer photolithography processes. The proposed nanostructure has a great potential to be used as a circular polarization rotator or diode-like device in optical communication systems.