OPTICAL DETECTORS IN

FIBER OPTIC RECEIVERS.

Introduction.
 A fiber optic receiver is an electro-optic
device that accepts optical signals from an
optical fiber and converts them into electrical
signals.

 Consists typically of :
-Optical detector
-Low-noise amplifier
-Other circuitry.
Block diagram of fiber optic
receiver.
Optical Detectors.
 These are transducers that convert optical
signals into electrical signals.

 Transducers are devices that convert input

energy of one form into output energy of
another.

 An optical detector does so by generating an

electrical current proportional to the intensity
of the incident optical light.
Optical Detector
Requirements.
 Compatible in size to low-pass optical fibers
for efficient coupling and packaging.

 High sensitivity at the operating wavelength

of the source.

 Low noise contribution.

 Maintain stable operation in changing

environmental conditions.
 At present, these requirements are met by
reverse biased p-n photodiodes.
 In these devices, the semiconductor material
absorbs a photon of light, which excites an
electron from the valence band to the
conduction band (opposite of photon emission).
 The photo generated electron leaves behind it
a hole, and so each photon generates two
charge carriers.
 Thisincreases the material conductivity
so called photoconductivity resulting in
an increase in the diode current.
Semiconductor Photodiodes.
 Generate current when they absorb photons.
The amount of current depends on ;

-Wavelength of the light and responsivity of

the photodiode

-Size of the photodiode active area relative to

the fiber core size

-Alignment of the fiber and photodiode.

Cut-off wavelength
 Any particular semiconductor can absorb
photon over a limited wavelength range.
 The highest wavelength is known as cut-off
wavelength.
 The cut-off wavelength is determined by band
gap energy Eg of material.
Quantum Efficiency
 The quantum efficiency is defined as
the number of electron hole carrier pair
generated per incident photon of energy
hv .
Detector Responsivity
 The responsivity of a photo detector is
the ratio of the current output to the
incident light.Responsivity is denoted by
R.

R=Ip/Po
 Typical responsitivity of pin photodiodes are
 Silicon pin photodiode at 900 nm is 0.65A/W.
 Germanium pin photodiode at 1.3µm is
0.45A/W.
 In GaAs pin photodiode at 1.3µm is 0.9 A/W.
Optical detector materials.
 Si,GaAs, GaAlAs – 850nm

 Ge, InP, InGaAs -1300nm and 1550nm.

 Materials determine the responsivity of the

detector which is the ratio of the output
photocurrent to the incident optical power.

 It’s a function of the wavelength and

efficiency of the device.
PIN Photodiode
 PIN diode consists of an intrinsic
semiconductor sandwiched between two
heavily doped p- type and n-type
semiconductors.
 Sufficient reverse voltage is applied so as to
keep intrinsic region free from carriers, so its
resistance is high, most of diode voltage
appears across it, and the electrical forces
are strong within it
 The incident photons give up their energy and
excite an electron from valance to conduction
band.
 Thus a free electron hole pair is generated,
these are called as photocarriers.
 These carriers are collected across the
reverse biased junction resulting in rise in
current in external circuit called photocurrent.
 In the absence of light, PIN photodiodes
behave electrically just like an ordinary
rectifier diode.
 If forward biased, they conduct large amount
of current.
 PIN detectors can be operated in two modes.
 Photovoltaic
 Photoconductive.
 In photovoltaic mode,no bias is applied to the
detector.
 In this case the detector works very slow,and
output is approximately logarithmic to the
input light level.
 Real world fiber optic receivers never use the
photovoltaic mode.
 In photoconductive mode, the detector is reverse
biased.
 The output in this case is a current that is very
linear with the input light power.
 The intrinsic region some what improves the
sensitivity of the device.
 The combination of different semiconductors
operating at different wavelengths allows the
selection of material capable of responding to the
desired operating wavelength.
 Semiconductor positive-negative structure
with an intrinsic region sandwiched between
the other two regions.

 Normally operated by applying a reverse-bias

voltage.

 Dark current can also be produced which is a

leakage current that flows when a reverse
bias is applied without incident light.
PIN Photodiode.
Schematic of a Photodiode.
Response time factors.
 -Related to the amount of time required for
the electrons generated to flow out of the
detector active area.

 load.
 Factors that determine the response time of a
photodiode are
 1) Transit time of photocarriers within the
depletion region.
 2) Diffusion time of photocarriers outside the
depletion region.
 3)RC time constant of diod and external
 The transit time is given by
 td = w/vd
 The detector behaves as a simple low pass
RC filter having pass band of
 B = 1/2¶RT CT
 Where RT is combination input resistance of
load and amplifier
 CT is sum of photodiode and amplifier
capacitance
 The semiconductor material absorbs a photon
of light,which excites an electron from the
valence band to the conduction band.
 The photon generated electron leaves behind
it a hole,and so each photon generates two
charge carriers.
 This increases the material conductivity so
called photoconductivity resulting in an
increase in the diode current.
 Three regions can be
 Forward bias, Reverse bias and
avalanche breakdown
 Forward bias region:
 A change in incident power causes a change
in terminal voltage,it is called as photovoltaic
mode.
 If the diode is operated in this mode,the
frequency response of the diode is poor and
so photovoltaic operation is rarely used in
optical links.
 Reverse bias, region:
 A change in optical power produces a
proportional change in diode current, it is called
as photoconductive mode of operation which
most detectors use.
 Under these condition,the reverse bias current is
given by,
 I diode =(Id+Is)
.
 Id is dark current i.e. current that flows
when no signal is present
 Is is photo generated current due to
incident optical signal
 Responsivity:
 of photodiode is defined as the
change in reverse bias current per unit
change in optical power, and so efficient
detectors need large responsivities.
 Avalache breakdown, region:
 When biased in this region, a photo
generated electron-hole pair causes
avalanch breakdown.APDs exhibit
carrier multiplication.They are very
sensitive detectors.
Advantage of PIN
photodiodes.
 The output electrical current is linearly
proportional to the input optical power
making it a highly linear device.
 Low bias voltage(<4v).
 Low noise
 Low dark current
 High-speed response
 AVALANCHE Photodiodes.
 AnAPD internally amplifies the
photocurrent by an avalanche process
when a large reverse-bias voltage is
applied across the active region.

 Thegain of the APD can be changed by

changing the reverse-bias voltage.
 When a p-n junction diode is applied with
high reverse bias breakdown can occur by
two separate mechanisms direct ionization of
the lattice atoms,zener breakdown and high
velocity carriers causing impact ionization of
the lattice atoms called avalanche
breakdown.
 APDs uses the avalanche breakdown
phenomena for its operation.
 The APD has its internal gain which increases
its responsivity.
 By virtue of the doping concentration and
physical construction of the n+ p junction, the
electric field is high enough to cause impact
ionization.
 Under normal operating bias, the I-Layer(the p-
region) is completely depleted.
 This is known as reach through condition.
 Similar to PIN photodiode, light absorption in APDs is
most efficient in I-layer
 In this region, the E-field separates the carriers and
electrons drift into the avalanche region where carrier
multiplication occurs.
 If the APD is biased close to breakdown, it will result
in reverse leakage current.
 Thus APDs are biases just below breakdown with the
bias voltage being controlled.
 The multiplication for all carriers generated in
the photodiode is given as
 M=Im/Ip
 Where
 Im =average value of total multiplied output
current
 Ip= primary unmultiplied photocurrent
AVALANCHE Photodiode.
Light Emitters As Detectors.
 LEDs and lasers can also be used as light detectors
making them half-duplex fiber optic communication
devices.

 They can be used alternately as light emitters and

detectors allowing transmission of information in
either direction over the fiber.

 In order for the LED to operate as a full-duplex, the

temperatures at both ends should be carefully
chosen.
Ping-Pong(Full-Duplex) LED.
Questions And Comments.
Receiver Design
 An optical receiver system converts optical
energy into electrical signal,amplify the signal
and process it.Therefore the important block
of optical receiver are
 Photodetector/ Front-end
 Amplifier / Linear channel
 Signal processing circuitry/ Data recovery
 Noise generated in receiver must be
controlled precisely as it decides the lowest
signal level that can b detected and
processed.
 Hence noise consideration is an important
factor in receiver design.
 Another important performance criteria of
receiver is average error probability.
Receiver configuration
 Configuration of typical optical receiver is shown in
fig.
 Photodetector parameters
 -PIN OR APD Type
 -Gain M=1
 -Quantum efficiency
 -Capacitance Cd
 -Bias resistance Rb
 -Thermal noise current ib(t) generated by Rb
 Amplifier parameters:
 -input impedence Ra
 -Shunt input capacitance Ca
 -Transconductance gm (Amp/volts)
 -input noise current ia(t) because of thermal noise
of Ra
 -input noise voltage source e(t)
 -Equalizer is frequency shaping filter used to
nullify the effect of signal distortion .
Preamplifier Types
 The bandwidth,BER ,Noise and sensitivity of
optical receiver are determined by
preamplifier stage.
 Preamplifier circuit must be designed with the
aim of optimizing these characteristics.
 Commonly used preamplifier in optical
communication receiver are
 1-Low-impedance preamplifier (LZ)

 2-High-impedance preamplifier (HZ)

 3-Transimpedance preamplifier (TZ)

1-Low-impedance preamplifier(LZ)
 In low impedance preamplifier, the
photodiode is configured in low impedance
amplifier.
 The bias resister Rb is used to match the
amplifier impedance.
 Rb along with the input capacitance of
amplifier decides the bandwidth of amplifier.
 Low impedance preamplifier can operate over
a wide bandwidth but they have poor receiver
sensitivity.
 Therefore the low impedance amplifier are
used where sensitivity is of not prime
concern.
2- High impedance preamplifier(HZ)
 In high- impedance preamplifier the objective
is to minimize the noise from all source.
 This can be achieved by
 -Reducing input capacitance by selecting
proper devices.
 -Selecting detectors with low dark currents.
 -Minimizing thermal noise of baising resistors
 -Using high impedance amplifier with large Rb.
 The high impedance amplifier uses FET OR
BJT.
 As the high impedance circuit has large RC
time constant,the bandwidth is reduced.
 Fig shows equivalent circuit of high input
impedance pre-amplifier.
 High input impedance preamplifier are most
sensitive and finds applications in long
wavelength.
 The high sensitivity is due to the use of a high
input resistance(typically › 1 MΩ)
 Which results in exceptionally low thermal
noise.
Transimpedance preamplifier(TZ)
 The drawbacks of high input impedance are
eliminated in transimpedance preamplifier.
 A negative feedback is introduced by a
feedback resister Rf to increase the
bandwidth of open loop preamplifier.
 An equivalent circuit of transimpedance
preamplifier is shown in fig
7.4.2 Receiver Capacitance

 The total capacitance to the front end of an optical

receiver is given by:
C T = C d + Ca
where Cd is the detector capacitance and Ca is the
amplifier input capacitance.
Need to minimize in order to preserve the post
detection bandwidth B. To increase B it is necessary
to reduce RL
1
B
2RL CT
 7.5 Receiver Structures
 There are 3 basic configurations for optical
receivers:

a) Low Impedance Front End

b) High Impedance Front End
c) Transimpedance Front End
7.5.1 Low Impedance Front End

 Simplest and most common

 Low impedance front end allows thermal noise to

dominate within the receiver

 Impractical for wideband optical fiber communication

systems.
Low Impedance Front End

Rb R
a
7.5.2 High Impedance Front End

 High input impedance amplifier with large detector

bias resistor to reduce thermal noise.

 Degraded frequency response

 Needs equalizer

 Improvement in sensitivity over the low impedance

front end design, but creates a heavy demand for
equalization .
High Impedance Front End
 7.5.3 Transimpedance Front End

 Overcomes the drawbacks of the high impedance

front end by utilizing a low noise, high input
impedance amplifier with negative feedback.
 Operates as a current mode amplifier where the
high input impedance is reduced by negative
feedback (vout = IpRL)
 Provides a far greater bandwidth without
equalization than the high impedance front end.
Transimpedance Front End
Noise
Noise is a term generally used to refer
to any undesired disturbances that
mask the received signal in a
communication system.
• Thermal noise
• Shot noise
 Thermal Noise

Also known as Johnson Noise or

Nyquist noise

The thermal noise current i in a

t
resistor R may be expressed by its
mean square value and is given by:
4 KTB
it
2

R
 where K is
Boltzmann's constant, T is
the absolute
temperature and B is
the post-detection bandwidth.
 • Electrons within any resistor never
remain stationary and this
constitutes a randomly varying
current known as thermal current.
• Motion due to their thermal energy.
4 KTB
I Thermal  I
R
The noise current produced by these random
motions of charged carriers is called “Thermal
noise current” . It is given by
SHOT NOISE
 When photons incident on the
photodetector are random in
nature,quantum noise or shot noise is
generated.
 Deviation of the actual number of
electrons from the average number is
known as shot noise.
 7.2 Shot Noise due to Dark
Current

 When there is no optical power incident on the photodetector

a small reverse leakage current still flows from the device
terminals and this contributes to the total system noise
 The shot noise due to the dark current, id is given by:

i  2eBI d
2
d

where e is the charge of an electron and Id is the dark

current.
 7.3 Shot Noise on the
Photocurrent
The shot noise, is on the photocurrent Ip is given
by:

i  2eBI p
2
s
 Signal power
 Signal power (Ps): affects quality of transmission.
Increasing Ps strengthens the signal pulse and
diminishes the effect of channel noise and interference
 Quality of analog or digital communication systems vary
with the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
 There is a minimum SNR for successful communication.
 Larger Ps allows the system to maintain a min SNR over
longer distance.
 To maintain a given rate and accuracy of information
transmission, Ps can be traded for B and vice versa.
 Ps can be increased to reduce B or Ps is reduced to use
bigger B
Sources of Power loss
 Optical receiver sensitivity is affected due to
several factors .
 Few major causes that degrade receiver
sensitivity are
 -Modal noise
 -Dispersion pulse broadening
 -Mode partition noise
 -Frequency Chirping
Modal noise
 Inmultimode fibers, there is interference
among various propagating modes
results in fluctuations in received power.
 These fluctuations are called modal
noise.
Dispersive pulse Broadening
 Intersymbol interference exists due to
spreading of pulse energy.
 Also decrease in pulse energy reduces
SNR at detector circuit.
Mode partition noise
 In multimode fiber various longitudinal
modes fluctuate even though intensity
remains constant.
 This creates mode partition noise.
 As a result all modes are
unsynchronized and creates additional
fluctuations and reduces SNR at
detector circuits.
Frequency Chirping.
 The change in carrier frequency due to
change in refractive index is called
frequency chirping.
 Because of frequency chirp the
spectrum of optical pulse gets broaden
and degrades system performance.