Chapter 4

Photodetectors andOptical receiver

By Capt. Samuel Amde (Lecturer)

Part A

PHOTODETECTORS
 Photo Detectors
• Optical receivers convert optical signal (light)
to electrical signal (current/voltage)
– Hence referred ‘O/E Converter’
• Photodetector is the fundamental element of
optical receiver, followed by amplifiers and
signal conditioning circuitry
• There are several photodetector types:
– Photodiodes, Phototransistors, Photon multipliers,
Photo-resistors etc.
 Photodetector Requirements
• Good sensitivity (responsivity) at the
desired wavelength and poor responsivity
elsewhere  wavelength selectivity
• Fast response time  high bandwidth
• Compatible physical dimensions
• Low noise
• Insensitive to temperature variations
• Long operating life and reasonable cost
 Photodiodes
• Due to above requirements, only photodiodes
are used as photo detectors in optical
communication systems
• Positive-Intrinsic-Negative (pin) photodiode
– No internal gain
• Avalanche Photo Diode (APD)
– An internal gain of M due to self multiplication
• Photodiodes are sufficiently reverse biased
during normal operation  no current flow, the
intrinsic region is fully depleted of carriers
 Physical Principles of
Photodiodes
• As a photon flux Φ penetrates into a semiconductor, it will be
absorbed as it progresses through the material.
• If αs(λ) is the photon absorption coefficient at a wavelength λ,
the power level at a distance x into the material is

Absorbed photons
trigger photocurrent
Ip in the external
circuitry
Photocurrent 
Incident Light Power
Examples of Photon
Absorption
 pin energy-band diagram

hc 1.24 Cut off wavelength depends on the

c   μm
E g E g (eV ) band gap energy
 Quantum Efficiency
• The quantum efficiency η is the number of the
electron–hole carrier pairs generated per incident–
absorbed photon of energy hν and is given by

Ip is the photocurrent generated by a steady-state

optical power Pin incident on the photodetector.
 Avalanche Photodiode (APD)
• APD has an internal gain obtained by having a
high electric field that energizes photo-generated
electrons and holes
• These electrons and holes ionize bound electrons
in the valence band upon colliding with them
• This mechanism is known as impact ionization
• The newly generated electrons and holes are also
accelerated by the high electric field and they gain
enough energy to cause further impact ionization
• This phenomena is called the avalanche effect
 APD Vs PIN
• APD has high gain due to self multiplying
mechanism, used in high end systems
• The tradeoff is the ‘excess noise’ due to
random nature of the self multiplying
process.
• APD’s need high reverse bias voltage (Ex:
40 V)
• Therefore costly and need additional
circuitry
 Responsivity ()
Quantum Efficiency () = number of e-h pairs
generated / number of incident photons
Ip / q I p q  mA/mW
   
P0 / h Po h 1.24
 APD   PIN M
Avalanche PD’s have an internal gain M
IM IM : average value of the total multiplied current
M M = 1 for PIN diodes
Ip
 Responsivity    / 1.24

When λ<< λc absorption is low hc 1.24

c   μm
When λ > λc; no absorption E g E g (eV )
 Photodetector Noise
• In fiber optic communication systems, the photodiode is
generally required to detect very weak optical signals.
• Detection of weak optical signals requires that the
photodetector and its amplification circuitry be optimized to
maintain a given signal-to-noise ratio.
• The power signal-to-noise ratio S/N (also designated by SNR)
at the output of an optical receiver is defined by

SNR Can NOT be improved by amplification

 Notation: Detector Current
• The direct current value is denoted by, IP .
• The time varying (either randomly or periodically) current
with a zero mean is denoted by, ip small main entry and
small suffix.
• Therefore, the total current Ip is the sum of the DC
component IP and the AC component ip .

I P  I p  ip
T /2
2 1 2
i p  LimT   i p (t )dt
T T / 2
 Quantum (Shot Noise)
Due optical power fluctuation because light is made up of
discrete number of photons

2 2
i Q  2qI p BM F ( M )

F(M): APD Noise Figure

F(M) ~= Mx (0 ≤ x ≤ 1)
Ip: Mean Detected Current
B = Bandwidth
 Dark/Leakage Current Noise
There will be some (dark and leakage ) current without any
incident light. This current generates two types of noise

2 2
Bulk Dark Current Noise i DB  2qI D BM F ( M )
ID: Dark Current

Surface Leakage 2
Current Noise
i DS  2qI L B
(not multiplied by M)
IL: Leakage Current
 Thermal Noise
The photodetector load resistor RL contributes to
thermal (Johnson) noise current
iT2  4 K BTB / RL

KB: Boltzmann’s constant = 1.38054 X 10(-23) J/K

T is the absolute Temperature
• Quantum and Thermal are the important noise
mechanisms in all optical receivers
• RIN (Relative Intensity Noise) will also appear in
analog links
 Signal to Noise Ratio
Detected current = AC (ip) + DC (Ip)
Signal Power = <ip2>M2
i p2 M 2
SNR 
2q( I p  I D ) M 2 F ( M ) B  2qI L B  4k BTB / RL
Typically not all the noise terms will have equal weight.
Often the average signal current is much larger than the
leakage and dark currents
Noise Calculation Example
 Limiting Cases for SNR
• When the optical signal power is relatively high, then the shot
noise power is much greater than the thermal noise power. In
this case the SNR is called shot-noise limited or quantum noise
limited.
• When the optical signal power is low, then thermal noise
usually dominates over the shot noise. In this case the SNR is
referred to as being thermal-noise limited.
 Limiting Cases of SNR
In the shot current limited case the SNR is:
i p2
SNR 
2q ( I p ) F ( M ) B

For analog links, there will be RIN (Relative

Intensity Noise) as well
i p2 M 2
SNR 
 2q ( I p  I D ) M 2 F ( M )  4k BT / RL  ( RIN ) I p2  B
 Noise-Equivalent Power
• The sensitivity of a photodetector is describable in terms of the
minimum detectable optical power to have SNR = 1.
• This optical power is the noise equivalent power or NEP.
• Example: Consider the thermal-noise limited case for a pin
photodiode. Then

To find the NEP, set the SNR = 1 and solve for P:

Response Time in pin photodiode

Transit time, td and carrier drift velocity vd are related by

td  w / v d
For a high speed Si PD, td = 0.1 ns
 Rise and fall times

Photodiode has uneven rise and fall times depending on:

1. Absorption coefficient s() and
2. Junction Capacitance Cj  o r A
Cj 
w
 Junction Capacitance
Cj 
 o  r A
w
εo = 8.8542 x 10(-12) F/m; free space permittivity
εr = the semiconductor dielectric constant
A = the diffusion layer (photo sensitive) area
w = width of the depletion layer

Large area photo detectors have large junction

capacitance hence small bandwidth (low speed)
 A concern in free space optical receivers
Part B

OPTICAL RECEIVER
Signal Path through an Optical Link
 Fundamental Receiver Operation
• The first receiver element is a pin or an avalanche photodiode, which
produces an electric current proportional to the received power level.
• Since this electric current typically is very weak, a front-end amplifier
boosts it to a level that can be used by the following electronics.
• After being amplified, the signal passes through a low-pass filter to reduce
the noise that is outside of the signal bandwidth.
• The also filter can reshape (equalize) the pulses that have become distorted
as they traveled through the fiber.
• Together with a clock (timing) recovery circuit, a decision circuit decides
whether a 1 or 0 pulse was received,
 Optical receiver schematic

Bandwidth of the front end:

CT: Total Capacitance = Cd+Ca

B  1 2 RT CT
RT: Total Resistance = Rb // Ra
Try Example 6.7 in Keiser
 Noise Sources in a Receiver
The term noise describes unwanted components of an electric signal that tend to
disturb the transmission and processing of the signal
• The random arrival rate of signal photons produces quantum (shot) noise
• Dark current comes from thermally generated eh pairs in the pn junction
• Additional shot noise arises from the statistical nature of the APD process
• Thermal noises arise from the random motion of electrons in the detector
load resistor and in the amplifier electronics
 Probability of Error (BER)
• BER is the ratio of erroneous bits to correct bits
• A simple way to measure the error rate in a digital data stream
is to divide the number Ne of errors occurring over a certain
time interval t by the number Nt of pulses (ones and zeros)
transmitted during this interval.
• This is the bit-error rate (BER)
• Here B is the bit rate.
• Typical error rates for optical fiber telecom systems range
from 10–9 to 10–12 (compared to 10-6 for wireless systems)
• The error rate depends on the signal-to-noise ratio at the
receiver (the ratio of signal power to noise power).
 Derived BER Expression
• A simple estimation of the BER can be calculated by assuming the
equalizer output is a gaussian random variable.
• Let the mean and variance of the gaussian output for a 1 pulse be bon
and σ2on, respectively, and boff and σ2off for a 0 pulse.
• If the probabilities of 0 and 1 pulses are equally likely, the bit error
rate or the error probability Pe becomes
 Logic 0 and 1 probability distributions

P0 (Vth )   p( y / 0) dy
Vth

Asymmetric distributions Vth

P1 (Vth )   p ( y /1)dy

Select Vth to minimize Pe
 Deciding Threshold Voltage
Probability of error assuming P  1 P (V )  P (V )
e 2 1 th 0 th 
Equal ones and zeros

Where, P0 (Vth )   p( y / 0)dy
Vth

Vth
P1 (Vth )   p( y /1)dy


Depends on the noise variance at on/off levels and the

Threshold voltage Vth that is decided to minimize the Pe

Question: Do you think Vth = ½ [Von + Voff] ?

 Probability of Error Calculation
• The factor Q is widely used to specify receiver performance, since it
is related to the SNR required to achieve a specific BER.
• There exists a narrow range of SNR above which the error rate is
tolerable and below which a highly unacceptable number of errors
occur. The SNR at which this transition occurs is called the
threshold level.
 BER as a Function of SNR
BER as a function of SNR when the standard deviations are equal
(σon = σoff) and when boff = 0
 Receiver Sensitivity
• To achieve a desired BER at a given data rate, a specific
minimum average optical power level must arrive at the
photodetector. The value of this minimum power level is called
the receiver sensitivity.
• Assuming there is no optical power in a received zero pulse,
then the receiver sensitivity is

Where, including an amplifier noise figure Fn, the

thermal noise current variance is
 Receiver Sensitivity Calculation
The receiver sensitivity as a function of bit rate will change for a given
photodiode depending on values of parameters such as wavelength,
APD gain, and noise figure.
 The Quantum Limit
• The minimum received optical power required for a specific bit-error rate
performance in a digital system.
• This power level is called the quantum limit, since all system parameters
are assumed ideal and the performance is limited only by the detection
statistics.
 Eye Diagrams
• Eye pattern measurements are made in the time domain and
immediately show the effects of waveform distortion on the
display screen of standard BER test equipment.
– The eye opening width defines the time interval over which signals can be
sampled without interference from adjacent pulses (ISI).
– The best sampling time is at the height of the largest eye opening.
– The eye opening height shows the noise margin or immunity to noise.
– The rate at which the eye closes gives the sensitivity to timing errors.
– The rise time is the interval between the 10 and 90% rising-edge points
 Stressed Eye Tests
• The IEEE 802.3ae spec for testing 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10-GbE) devices
describes performance measures using a degraded signal.
• This stressed eye test examines the worst-case condition of a poor
extinction ratio plus multiple stresses, ISI or vertical eye closure, sinusoidal
interference, and sinusoidal jitter.
• The test assumes that all different possible signal impairments will close
the eye down to a diamond shaped area (0.10 and 0.25 of the full pattern
height).
• If the eye opening is greater than this area, the receiver being tested is
expected to operate properly in an actual fielded system.

The inclusion of all possible signal

distortion effects results in a
stressed eye with only a small
diamond-shaped opening

42
 Analog Systems
• Analog systems differ from digital systems in following aspects:
– The LASER or LED is always on. Therefore, there is a large mean optical
power, say Po.
– A relatively small ac component is superimposed on top of this mean value.
– There will be RIN in addition to other noise.
• Considering direct intensity modulation on the laser diode, the
instantaneous optical power output P(t) from the laser in response
to input electrical signal s(t) is (ls(t)l <= 1),
P(t) = Po[1 + ms(t)]
• Here m is the optical modulation index, Po is the mean optical
power. Neglecting attenuation in the fiber, detector current Ip(t) is,
 contd
• The complete signal to noise ratio of an analog fiber optic link
considering all these noise processes is given below.
• Relative Intensity Noise (RIN)
• The RIN exists only in analog systems when the laser is always
on. In this case, the light produced by the laser is not stable in
intensity.
• A fluctuation in the optical output intensity due to multiple
reflections in fiber optic link leads to this optical intensity noise.
The noise power due to RIN is given as, where m is the
modulation index, Po is the mean optical power and s(t) is the
modulating (electrical) signal.
• In the shot noise limited case
• That is, SNR increases with mean detected current IP . Mean
detected current is proportional to mean optical power Po.
However, large Po means relatively low m. Therefore, there is an
optimum m in the shot noise limited case that will give the
highest SNR.

• In the RIN limited case,

• That is the SNR is independent to mean optical power and

increases with the RF power. However, when the RF power is
large enough (m2E[s2(t)] > 1), the SNR saturates.