Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) have recently emerged as a promising receiver technology in free-space optical communications due to their inherent ability to collect light from a wide field-of-view and concentrate it into small areas, thus leading to high optical gains. Several high-speed communication systems integrating LSCs in their detector blocks have already been demonstrated, with the majority of efforts so far being devoted to maximising the received optical power and the system’s field-of-view. However, LSCs may pose a severe bottleneck on the bandwidth of such communication channels due to the comparably slow timescale of the fluorescence events involved, a situation further aggravated by the inherent reabsorption in these systems, and yet, an in-depth study into such dynamic effects remains absent in the field. To fill this gap, we have developed a comprehensive analytical solution that delineates the fundamental bandwidth limits of LSCs as optical detectors in arbitrary free-space optical links, and establishes their equivalence with simple RC low-pass electrical circuits. Furthermore, we demonstrate a time-domain Monte Carlo simulation platform, an indispensable tool in the multiparameter optimisation of LSC-based receiver systems. Our work offers vital insight into LSC system dynamic behaviour and paves the way to evaluate the technology for a wide range of applications, including visible light communications, high-speed video recording, and real-time biological imaging, to name a few.

发光太阳能聚光器（LSC）最近成为自由空间光通信中一种有前途的接收器技术，因为它们具有从宽视场收集光并将其集中到小区域的固有能力，从而产生高光学增益。一些在探测器模块中集成 LSC 的高速通信系统已经得到验证，迄今为止的大部分工作都致力于最大化接收光功率和系统视场。然而，由于所涉及的荧光事件的时间尺度相对较慢，LSC 可能会对此类通信通道的带宽造成严重的瓶颈，这些系统固有的重吸收进一步加剧了这种情况，然而，对这种动态的深入研究该领域仍然缺乏影响。为了填补这一空白，我们开发了一种全面的分析解决方案，描述了 LSC 作为任意自由空间光链路中的光探测器的基本带宽限制，并建立了它们与简单 RC 低通电路的等效性。此外，我们还演示了时域蒙特卡罗仿真平台，这是基于 LSC 的接收系统多参数优化中不可或缺的工具。我们的工作提供了对 LSC 系统动态行为的重要见解，并为评估该技术的广泛应用铺平了道路，包括可见光通信、高速视频记录和实时生物成像等。