High sensitivity and wide-dynamic-range optical receiver for 40 Gbit/s optical communication networks

An optical receiver for 40 Gbit/s communication networks demonstrating very high sensitivity without optical amplification has been developed. The receiver comprises an InP-based pin diode and HBT transimpedance amplifier. The receiver achieves a back-to-back sensitivity of -9 dBm and a high dynamic range of 13 dBm, measured using a pseudorandom binary sequence of 2³¹ - 1 at a bit error rate of 10^-12. These results show the highest sensitivity and widest dynamic range yet reported for 40 Gbit/s optical receivers without optical amplification.