Optical Receiver Operation

• An optical receiver consists of :

• A photodetector
• An amplifier
• Signal-processing circuitry
• Signal flows :
optical signal → electric signal → amplified signal → processed signal
• Various noises and distortions unavoidably can lead to errors (corrupt
the signal)
• The noise generally set the lowest limit for the signals that can be
processed (S/N = 1)
Fundamental Receiver Operation
• Digital Signal Transmission
• Error Sources
•
• A further error source is attributed to Inter-Symbol Interference
(ISI), which results from pulse spreading in the optical fiber.
• Receiver Configuration
Digital Receiver Performance Calculation
• Probability of Error
• Error rate or bit error rate (BER) the number 𝑁𝑒 of errors occurring over a
certain time interval 𝑡 divided by the number 𝑁𝑡 of pulses (ones and zeros)
transmitted during this interval.
• Logic 0 and 1 probability distributions
• BER vs SNR
•
Analog Receivers
• Digital receiver performance → error probability (BER)
• Analog receiver performance → signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
• SNR is defined as the ratio of the mean-square signal current to the
mean-square noise current
• Analog LED modulation
• The simplest analog technique is to
use amplitude modulation

where 𝑃𝑡 is the average transmitted

optical power, s(t) is the analog
modulation signal, and 𝑚 is the
modulation index
• At the receiver end, the photocurrent generated by the analog optical
signal is :

Where,
ℜ0 is the detector responsivity
𝑃𝑟 is the average received power
𝐼𝑃 is the primary photocurrent
M is the photodetector gain
• If s(t) is a sinusoidal modulated signal, the mean square signal current
:

• The mean square noise current (sum of the mean square quantum
noise current, the thermal noise current, the dark noise current and
the surface-leakage noise current):

• Therefore (for a pin photodiode),

• SNR vs. optical power for photodiodes
Quiz
• See the Scele!