A novel heterodyne reception of optical wireless communication adopting photorefractive multiple quantum well device is discussed. Compared with the conventional heterodyne scheme, it avoids the complicated intermediate-frequency tracking system. Compared with homodyne reception using multiple quantum well device, the noise is suppressed dramatically with the help of electronic intermediate-frequency filter. Consequently, the signal-to-noise ratio is improved. The theoretical expression of self-coherence signal is deduced. And the expression of signal-to-noise ratio is given. The impact on the novel heterodyne reception scheme is also analyzed in detail. An experiment of the scheme is conducted. The result of theoretical calculations and experiment show that the scheme can repress to a certain extent many problems due to laser transmission in the atmosphere. This new scheme can be applied to satellite-ground laser communication and terrestrial optical wireless communication.