LOSS AND BANDWIDTH

DEFINITIONS: OPTICAL & ELECTRICAL

 Optical Loss / Electrical Loss
• Why should optical loss be “different” to electrical loss?
– After all, power is power, whether it be electrical or optical,
and SI units are the same, i.e. watts (W). And the ratio of
power will be dimensionless for both.

• The clue is in the conversion from electronic signals to optical

signals by, for example, laser diodes, and also the
corresponding optical to electronic conversion by photodiodes.

• In light emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes, photons are

generated by electron-hole recombination. Electrons are
provided by an injection current. In photodiodes, electron-holes
are generated by incident photons.
 • Consider a photodiode:
...over the same period,
Ne electrons (and holes)
In a time period T, are generated and flow
Np photons of through the load resistor
wavelength λ are
detected... I
Neq
PO I
N p hc Load T
Po  resistor
RL
T

Ne I hc
N.B. quantum efficiency is:  PD  
N p Po q

q = electron charge, h = Planck’s constant

• In other words, the photocurrent is directly proportional to the input optical
power. Consider an ideal photodiode characteristic:

I
q
slope =  PD 
hc

Note: the slope is called the

Po
responsivity , and has units A/W

There is a linear relationship between the current and optical power. However,
the power dissipated in the load resistor is given by:

Pe  I 2 RL
• Hence optical power emitted is directly proportional to
current: Po  I

• In contrast, electrical power dissipated is directly

proportional to the square of the current:
Pe  I 2

• What does this mean in practice?

• The electrical power dissipated in the load resistance of the

photodetector is proportional to the square of the incident
optical power. (Remember, photodetectors are often
referred to as square law detectors.)
Consider the following link, in which power is in mW and current in mA:

Fibre length L
Pe1  Por1  RL
2
Pos Por1

We now keep everything the same, but increase the fibre length (and hence
increase the optical loss) such that the optical power at the receiver is halved:

Pe 2  Por 2  RL
2
Pos Por 2


Por1

Por1 
2
R
2 4
L

The loss of the optical part has increased, and so has the loss of the overall link
(which is going to be electrical, since the input to the source is current). But in
what way?
Optical loss Because the input power to the fibre is kept constant, we simply
compare the output power from the fibre for both cases:

Por1
 2  3 dB
Por 2

Electrical loss Because the input current to the source is kept constant, we
simply compare the power dissipated in the load resistor for both cases:

Per1
 4  6 dB
Per 2
To avoid confusion, we often use dBo for optical losses and dBe for the
corresponding electrical losses, and the relationship between them is:

1 dBo  2 dBe
 Optical BW / Electrical BW
current ratio iout(j)/ iin(j)
electrical 3 dB point

1.000
optical 3 dB point
0.707

0.500

electrical bandwidth
frequency

optical bandwidth
(Note: the default BW definition is electrical BW)