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Optoelectronics – TL391

Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Department of Telecommunication, Room # 117
Institute of Information & Communication Technologies (IICT),
Mehran UET, Jamshoro
https://sites.google.com/a/faculty.muet.edu.pk/fau/cs
Email: faheemaziz.umrani@faculty.muet.edu.pk
Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Introduction
 The transfer of information in the form of light
propagating within an optical fiber requires
the successful implementation of an optical
fiber communication system.

 To achieve reliable and secure communication

using optical fiber it is essential that all the
components within the transmission system
are compatible.

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani
Principle Components of Optical
Communication System

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Optical Transmitter System

 The two optical sources LASER and LED exhibit a number
of similarities in terms of their general performance and
compatibility with optical fibers.
 Along with similarities striking difference exist between
them.
 It is useful to consider these differences as well as
limitations of two source types.
 Source limitations
 Power Response
 Linearity Spectral width
 Thermal Non zero extinction ratio

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Power
 The electrical power required to operate both injection laser and LEDs is similar with current
levels of between 20 and 300 mA and voltage drop across the terminals of 1.5 to 2.5 V.
 Coupling Efficiency
 The coherence of laser emission allows it to be readily focused by appropriate lenses
within the numerical aperture of the fiber (near 30% and 80% with suitable lens
arrangement).
 Only between 1% or 10% of the emitted optical power from an LED may be launched
(even with appropriate lens coupling).
 Optical Power
 Injection lasers are capable of launching between 0.5 and several mWs of optical power
into a fiber.
 LEDs are capable of launching from few to several hundred µWs of optical power into a
individual multimode fiber.
 Hence,
 optical power coupled into a fiber from an LED can be 10 to 20 dB below that obtain
with a typical injection laser.

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Linearity
 Analog Transmission
 At first sight LED may appear to be ideally suited to analog transmission as its
o/p is linear(proportional to drive current).
 Operating injection laser for analog transmission may be more suitable.

 Nonlinearity in Optical output against current

 Most LEDs display some degree of nonlinearity, only certain LEDs like etched-
well surface emitters display good linearity.
 In injection laser gross nonlinearities may occur due to mode instabilities.

 Digital Transmission
 Digital transmission is less sensitive to source nonlinearities therefore it is
often preferred when using both injection lasers and LEDs.

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Thermal
 The thermal behavior of both injection laser and LEDs can limit their operation
within the optical transmitter.

 LASER
 The variation of injection laser threshold current with the device junction
temperature can cause a major operating problem. Threshold currents of typical
AlGaAs devices increase by approximately 1% per degree centigrade increase in
junction temperature.
 Any significant increase in junction temperature may cause loss of lasing and a
dramatic reduction in optical o/p power.

 LED
 Most LEDs exhibit a decrease in optical o/p power following an increase in junction
temperature which is typically around -1% per degree centigrade. This temperature
dependence can result in variation in optical power of several dBs over the
temperature range 0° to 70° C.

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Response
 The speed of response of the two types of optical source is
largely dictated by their respective radiative emission
mechanism.

 Rise Time
 Spontaneous emission from LED is dependent on the effective
minority carrier lifetime in semiconductor material. In heavily doped
GaAs this is typically between 1 and 10 ns.
 The rise times for many available LEDs lie between 2 and 50 ns and
give 3dB bandwidth of around 7 to 175 MHz.
 Stimulated emission from injection laser occurs over a much shorter
period giving rise times of 0.1 to 1 ns allowing 3dB bandwidth above
1GHz.

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Spectral Width
 LED
 The incoherent emission from an LED displays a spectral linewidth
between 20 and 50 nm when operating in the 0.8 to 0.9 micro meter
wavelength range.
 The overall bandwidth for an optical fiber link over several kms may
be restricted by material dispersion rather than the response time of
the source.

 LASER
 The coherent emission form an injection laser generally has a
linewidth of 1nm or less.
 Use of injection laser greatly reduces the effect of material dispersion
within the fiber.

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Non Zero Extinction Ratio

 When optical power is incident on the photo-detector
during the 0 bit period, then the system is said to
exhibit a nonzero extinction ratio.
 It is defined as the ratio of optical energy emitted in
the 0 bit period to that emitted during the 1 bit period.
 Typical values for ε are between 0.05 and 0.10 and
such nonzero ratios give rise to a noisy penalty within
optical fiber communication system.
 In practice it is often found to be in the range 1 to 2 dB.
 Any dark current present in the photo-detector will
also appear to increase the extinction ratio as it adds to
the signal current in both the 0 and 1 bit periods.

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Optical Receiver

Device Purpose
OPTICAL DETECTOR it converts optical signal into electrical signal
PRE-AMPLIFIER initial amplification is done here keeping the additional noise
minimum to avoid corruption of the received signal

AMPLIFIER it provides additional low noise amplification

EQUALIZER to compensate the distortion and provide the suitable signal
shape for the filter an equalizer is included in the receiver

FILTER it maximizes the received SNR, preserving the essential features

of the signal

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Receiver Noise
 To consider Rx design it is useful to regard the limit on the
performance of the system set by the signal to noise ratio (SNR) at
the Rx so noise sources within optical fiber system must be
outlined.

 In optical fiber communication systems we are generally concerned

with noise due to spontaneous fluctuations rather than erratic
disturbances which may be feature of copper-based systems.

 Types of noise due to spontaneous fluctuations in optical fiber

communication are:
 Thermal noise
 Dark current noise
 Quantum noise

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Thermal Noise
 Spontaneous fluctuation due to thermal interaction
between the free electrons and the vibrating ions in a
conducting medium.
 The thermal noise current it in a resistor R may be
expressed by its mean square value given by,
4𝐾𝑇𝐵
𝑖𝑡2 =
𝑅
Where,
K = Boltzman’s constant = 1.3807x10-23 joules/kelvin (J.K-1)
T = absolute temperature
B = post-detection(electrical) bandwidth of the system

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Dark Current
 Dark Current: a small reverse leakage current that flows
from the device terminals even when there is no optical
power incident on the photo detector.
 This dark current gives random fluctuations about the
average particle flow of the photocurrent.
 The dark current noise is given by,
𝑖𝑑2 = 2𝑒𝐵𝐼𝑑

where,
e = charge on an electron = 1.60217662 × 10-19 coulombs
Id = dark current

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Quantum Noise
 The detection of light by a photodiode is a discrete process and the signal
emerging from the detector is dictated by the statistics of photon arrivals.
 It is found that the probability P(z) of detecting z photons in time period τ
when it is expected on average to detect zm photons obeys the Poisson
distribution, 2
𝑧𝑚 exp −𝑧𝑚
𝑃(𝑧) =
𝑧!

where zm is the variance and mean of probability distribution.

 The average number of electron-hole pairs per bit is,
𝜏
𝜂 𝑃𝑜 𝜂𝜏
𝑧𝑚 = 𝑁 = 𝑃 𝑡 𝑑𝑡 =
ℎ𝑓 ℎ𝑓
0

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Derive Circuits
 Derive circuit can provide sufficient current and voltage
values to derive optical sources (LED/LASER) and
optical detectors (PN, PIN, APD etc) to get optimal
values in terms of switching speed and modulation
bandwidth. Transistors are electronics circuits to switch
power to an LED. NPN transistor are best used for
switching LED for high power requirement.
 LEDs/LASERs will operate on maximum drive current in
range of 20 mA to 100 mA depending on type of
optical source using, also forward voltage is different
for LED/LASER.

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Series Resistor based LED drive circuit

LED
6V
30 mA 2.2 V

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Transistor based LED drive circuit.

VCC
5.0V VCC
5.0V
R

LED1
b60
30 mA Current1mA

2N3906
1mA hfe60
2N3904 V1
RL
1kHz
V2 5V
1kHz LED2
5V 30 mA

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani
Darlington configuration based LED drive
circuit

VCC
5.0V

LED1
30 mA

1mA
hfe=200
V2
1kHz
5V

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Overall Receiver Noise

 The overall receiver noise is a complex sum of
various noise sources discussed earlier.
 The total shot noise is given by:
𝑖2𝑇𝑆 = 2𝑒𝐵(𝐼𝑝 + 𝐼𝑑)
 The thermal noise due to load resistance 𝑅𝐿 is
given by:
2
𝑖 𝑇𝐻 = 4𝐾𝑇𝐵/𝑅𝐿

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

Overall Receiver Noise

 The signal to noise ratio (SNR) for the p-n or p-i-n
photodiode receiver may be obtained by
summing all the noise contributions.
 It is given by:
𝑆 𝐼𝑝2
=
𝑁 2𝑒𝐵 𝐼 + 𝐼 + 4𝐾𝑇𝐵 + 𝑖 2
𝑝 𝑑 𝑅𝐿 𝑎𝑚𝑝

2
 𝐼𝑝 = ℜ𝑃𝑖 where Pi is the input signal and 𝑖𝑎𝑚𝑝 is
the amplifier noise.
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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

 The noise associated with the amplifier can be

combined with the thermal noise from the
load resistor using the noise figure Fn for the
amplifier to give:
𝑖𝑡2 + 𝑖𝑎𝑚𝑝
2
= 4𝐾𝑇𝐵𝐹𝑛/𝑅𝐿
 The expression for the SNR can now be
written as:
𝑆 𝐼𝑝2
=
𝑁 2𝑒𝐵 𝐼 + 𝐼 + 4𝐾𝑇𝐵𝐹𝑛
𝑝 𝑑 𝑅 𝐿

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Optoelectronics – TL391 Dr. Fahim Aziz Umrani

 Acknowledgements
 Thanks to Zahra Fatima (08TL12) and Murk
Aijaz (08TL24) for their help in making these
slides.

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