Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Optical Receivers: Theory and Operation
Optical Receivers: Theory and Operation
Xavier Fernando
Ryerson Communications Lab
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~fernando
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.
Requirements
• Compatible physical dimensions (small size)
• Low sensitivity (high responsivity) at the
desired wavelength and low responsivity
elsewhere wavelength selectivity
• Low noise and high gain
• Fast response time high bandwidth
• Insensitive to temperature variations
• Long operating life and low cost
Photodiodes
• Photodiodes meet most the requirements, hence
widely used as photo detectors.
• Positive-Intrinsic-Negative (pin) photodiode
– No internal gain, robust detector
• Avalanche Photo Diode (APD)
– Advanced version with internal gain M due to self
multiplication process
• Photodiodes are sufficiently reverse biased during
normal operation no current flow without
illumination, 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
Examples of Photon
Absorption
pin energy-band diagram
hc 1.24
c μm Cut off wavelength depends on the
Eg Eg (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
hc
When λ<< λc absorption is low c
When λ > λc; no absorption Eg
Light Absorption Coefficient
• The upper cutoff
wavelength is
determined by the
bandgap energy Eg of
the material.
• At lower-wavelength
end, the photo response
diminishes due to low
absorption (very large
values of αs).
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
I P I p ip
T /2
1
Lim T
2 2
i p i p (t )dt
T T / 2
Quantum (Shot Noise)
Quantum noise arises due optical power fluctuation
because light is made up of discrete number of photons
i2
Q 2qI p BM F ( M )
2
Surface Leakage i 2
DS 2qI L B
Current Noise
(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
Typically not all the noise terms will have equal weight.
Often thermal and quantum noise are the most significant.
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 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
• Note, APD
has an
advantage
only at low
received
power levels
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
NOTE: The values were derived from various vendor data sheets
and from performance numbers reported in the literature. They
are guidelines for comparison purposes only.
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
Vth
P1 (Vth ) p( y /1)dy
46
Architecture of a Typical PON
• A passive optical network (PON) connects switching equipment in a
central office (CO) with N service subscribers
• Digitized voice and data are sent downstream from the CO to customers
over an optical link by using a 1490-nm wavelength.
• The upstream (customer to central office) return path for the data and voice
uses a 1310-nm wavelength.
Burst-Mode Receivers
• The amplitude and phase of packets received in successive time slots from
different user locations can vary widely from packet to packet.
• If the fiber attenuation is 0.5 dB/km, there is a 10-dB difference in the
signal amplitudes from the closest and farthest users.
• If there are additional optical components in one of the transmission paths,
then the signal levels arriving at the OLT could vary up to 20 dB.
• A fast-responding burst-mode receiver with high sensitivity is needed