Ultrahigh bandwidth balanced mixer receiver OEIC

Coherent optical receivers are very attractive devices for future optical communication systems because of their capability to exploit the broadband potential of optical fibres. Due to the complexity of heterodyne receivers, an economical application of the coherent technology requires monolithic integrated circuits, which reduce costs and improves compactness and reliability. Additionally the monolithical integration of optical and optoelectronic devices facilitates the achievement of optical pathlength equality and current subtraction in the balanced mode, which is particularly important for high speed devices. In this paper we present an ultra fast monolithically integrated balanced mixer receiver with a bandwidth of 14 GHz for coherent detection systems