Photodetectors and Optical

Receivers
 Photodetectors
 By improving the performance of optical receiver and transmitter , the no:
of repeater can be decreased and the spacing between repeaters can be
increased.

 Requirements for good optical detectors are :

 Sensitivity has to be matched to the emission spectra of the optical
transmitter
 Linearity (Linear relationship between the intensity and the electrical
signal)
 Large BW
 High quantum efficiency / high spectral sensitivity
 Fast response time
 Stability of performance (insensitive to temperature)
 Reliability and Robustness
 Low Noise
 Lost Cost
 Classification of optical detectors
1. Diodes
- Pn-diodes
- Pin diodes
- Avalanche photodiodes
- Schottky diodes
2. Photo conductors
3. Photo transistors

Absorption
 The absorption of a photon produces an electron hole-pair and thus a
photocurrent.
 The absorption of the photons depends on the absorption coefficient α in
the medium. The absorption coefficient is strongly wavelength dependent.
 Optical detection principle
• The conversion of an optical signal into an electrical signal requires the
absorption of the incident light.
• The absorption leads to an excitation of an electron from the valence to the
conduction band.
• The absorption leads to the generation of a hole and an electron.
• Electron-hole pairs have to be separated by
an electric field.
• Thus leads to current- photocurrent
• The energy of the photon has
to be sufficiently high to excite an electron
from the valence to the conduction band.
 The photocurrent caused by the absorption of photons can be calculated by

where Pin is the incident optical power, λ is the wavelength of the incident light,

h is the Planck constant, e is the elementary charge, d is the thickness of the

absorber.

 The term R accounts for the reflection at the interface of the detector and air,

(1-R) is the light absorbed in the detector and

the exponential term considers the absorption in the medium.

 The absorption coefficient strongly depends on the wavelength.

 Direct band semiconductors are the preferred materials for the realization
of optical sources like LEDs and semiconductor laser diodes.

 Silicon and germanium are the best known indirect bandgap

semiconductors.
 The direct semiconductors exhibit a sharp transition in the optical absorption.

 Based on the absorption coefficient you can see what material is suitable for what
kind of wavelength region.
For example,
-silicon: optical bandgap = 1.14ev and corresponding wavelength=1100nm
- Up to 1100nm silicon can absorb the optical signal
- That means silicon is not suitable as an optical detector for an DWDM (Dense
Wavelength Division Multiplexing) system which operates at a wavelength of
1550nm.
-Silicon is transparent for such a wavelength.

 The behavior of germanium is different.

-The optical band gap of germanium is 0.67eV, which corresponds to a cut-off
wavelength of more than 1850nm. However, the absorption coefficient is already
very low for such a high wavelength.
 Germanium detectors are reasonable sensitive up to a wavelength of 1600nm.
Therefore, germanium can be (theoretically) used as an optical detector for DWDM
systems. However, due to the small optical bandgap the leakage current of
germanium diodes is very high.
 Gallium arsenide has an direct optical bandgap of 1.43eV. It can be used for the
manufacturing of GaAs based LEDs and laser diodes in the short wave band.
 In order to increase the absorption in the infrared part of the spectrum, which is
necessary for the optical communication system, we have to add indium to the
semiconductor. Indium will reduce the optical bandgap of gallium arsenide.
 An overview of the optical bandgaps at room temperature is given in the table.
 Efficiency of optical Detectors

The Quantum efficiency

The quantum efficiency is defined by:

 Iph is the photocurrent generated by a steady state optical power Pin incident on
the photodetector

 One of the major factors which influences the quantum efficiency is the absorption
coefficient. The quantum efficiency is generally below unity, but can be for its
maximum very close to unity.
Spectral responsivity

 The quantum efficiency does not take into account the photon energy. Therefore,
the responsivity can be very helpful to describe the spectral sensitivity of the
devices. The spectral responsivity is given by:

 where Iph it the photocurrent and Pin is the incident optical power. The unit of the
spectral responsivity is A/W.
 The spectral sensitivity can be derived from the quantum efficiency by:
 It can be seen that the responsivity is increasing with the wavelength of the incident
photons.
 The difference between the ideal and the real diode can be explained by thermal
losses for lower wavelengths and a reduced absorption coefficient for higher
wavelengths.
 Operating principle of Photodiodes
 The electron-hole pairs generated in a photodiode are separated by the
electric field.
 The internal field is created by the build-in potential which leads to the
formation of a depletion region. The external electrical field is due to the
external applied bias voltage.
 The separated carriers lead to generation of photocurrent
 The reverse bias voltage leads to an increase of the electric field in the
depletion region and the depletion region gets wider.
 pin photodetector

• Device structure consists of p and n regions separated by a very lightly n

doped intrinsic (i)region

• Incident photon of energy greater than band gap energy of sc – excites an

electron from valence band to conduction band

• Generates free electron-hole pairs- photocarriers

• Photodetector is normally designed so that these carriers are generated

mainly in the depletion region where most of the light is absorbed

• High E-field present in the depletion region causes carriers to separate and
be collected across the RB junction

• Give rise to current flow in an external circuit- photocurrent

 Typical materials used for the three optical communication bands:

Short wave band (800nm – 900nm)

 Silicon pin diodes are the best choice for the short wave band. The diodes are very
inexpensive, reliable and easy to handle.

Medium Wave band (1250 nm - 1350nm)

 In this band germanium and different compound semiconductors are of interest.

Germanium has a lower bandgap energy of 0.67eV, so that it can theoretically be
used up to 1600nm (but it is typically not used). Indium gallium arsenide phosphide
(InGaAsP) is an alternative. The material has an optical bandgap of 0.89eV
depending on the composition of the material and is perfectly suitable for the
medium wavelength band. Of course all diodes based on compound semiconductors
are significantly more expensive in manufacturing.
Long Wave Band (1500nm - 1600 nm)

 For the long wave band the optical bandgap of the material has to be already very
small. This causes problems. At room temperature already a large number of
carriers is excited due to thermal excitation. This problem can be solved to a certain
extend by using heterostructures. A material used here is usually InGaAs (indium
gallium arsenide). InGaAs has a bandgap energy of 0.77 eV.

 Sensitivity of pin diodes based

On various material systems.
 Avalanche Photodiode (APD)

• In APDs primary photocurrent gets multiplied

• For carrier multiplication to take place, photogenerated carriers must pass through a
very high electric field
• In this high field region a photogenerated electron or hole gain enough energy to
ionize bound electrons in VB upon colliding with them-impact ionization
• Newly created carriers are accelerated in the high electric field, thus gaining enough
energy to cause further impact ionization- avalanche effect
• Low RB voltage applied- most of the potential drop across pn+ junction
• On increasing the voltage depletion region widens
• Light enters through the p+ region and is absorbed in the π region which acts as the
collection region for the photogenerated carriers
• On absorbing the photon, electron hole pair are created and then separated by the
electric field in the π region
• Photogenerated electrons drift through π region to the pn+ junction where a high
electric field exists
• In this high electric field region carrier multiplication takes place
 Comparison
• APD vs PIN
 Noise Sources in Photodiode
 For photon detectors, there are three primary noise sources
Shot Noise
 Quantum or shot noise arises from the statistical nature of the production
and collection of photoelectrons when an optical signal is incident on a
photodetector
 Random variations in the rate at which charge carriers are generated and
recombine.
 These statistics follow a Poisson Process

< iQ2> = 2qIpBM2F(M)

Ip - avg value of photocurrent

F(M)- noise figure associated with avalanche process
B- bandwidth
Dark current Noise
 Dark current is the current that flows through the bias circuit of the device
when no light is incident on the photodiode.
 This is the combination of bulk and surface currents
 The bulk dark current arises from electron and hole which are thermally
generated in the pn junction of the photodiode

< iDB2> = 2qIDBM2F(M)

ID is the primary (unmultiplied) detector bulk dark current.

 The surface dark current is also referred as surface leakage current.

 It depends on surface defects ,cleanliness, bias voltage and surface area
 The effective way to reducing surface dark current is through the use of
guard ring which shunts surface leakage currents away from the load
resistor
< iDS2> = 2qILB
IL – surface leakage current
• Johnson/Thermal Noise
 It results from the random motion of electrons in conductor
 When current goes out to external circuit and passes through resistance ,
noise generated inside resistor is thermal noise

< iT2> = (4kBTB)/RL

kB - Boltzmann’s constant, T- absolute temperature

• SNR at input of amplifier
 Optical Receiver

 An optical receiver system converts optical energy into electrical signal, amplify the
signal and process it. Therefore the important blocks of optical receiver are :
-Photo detector
-Amplifier
-Signal processing circuitry / Data recovery
 The transmitted signal is a two-level binary data stream consisting of either a ‘0’ or
a ‘1’ in a bit period Tb
 The simplest technique for sending binary data is amplitude-shift keying, wherein a
voltage level is switched between on or off values.
 The resultant signal wave thus consists of a voltage pulse of amplitude V when a
binary 1 occurs and a zero-voltage-level space when a binary 0 occurs.
 An electric current i(t) can be used to modulate directly an optical source to
produce an optical output power P(t).
 In the optical signal emerging from the transmitter, a ‘1’ is represented by a light
pulse of duration Tb,whereas a ‘0’ is the absence of any light.
 The optical signal that gets coupled from the light source to the fiber becomes
attenuated and distorted as it propagates along the fiber waveguide.
 Upon reaching the receiver, either a PIN or an APD converts the optical signal back
to an electrical format.
 A decision circuit compares the amplified signal in each time slot with a threshold
level
 If the received signal level is greater than the threshold level, a ‘1’ is said to have
been received.
 If the voltage is below the threshold level, a ‘0’ is assumed to have been received.
 Low pass filter reduces the noise that is outside of the signal bandwidth, it
minimize the effects of ISI : function is equalization since it equalizes or cancels the
pulse spreading effects.
 To accomplish bit interpretation ,the receiver must know where the bit boundaries
are .This is done with the help of clock (periodicity equals to bit interval)
 Quantum Limit

• The primary photo current generated by the photodiode is a time varying

Poisson process resulting from the random arrival of photons at the detector
• If the detector is illuminated by an optical signal P(t) then average number
of electron hole pairs generated in a time τ is

• Actual number of electron hole pairs n that are generated fluctuates from
the average according to Poisson distribution
• For an ideal photo-detector having unity quantum efficiency and producing
no dark current, it is possible to find the minimum received optical power
required for a specific BER performance in a digital system.
• This minimum received power level is known as the quantum limit .
• Assume that an optical pulse of energy E falls on the photo-detector in a
time interval τ.
• This can be interpreted by the receiver as a ‘0’ pulse if no electron-hole
pairs are generated with the pulse present.
• probability that n =0 electrons are emitted in a time interval τ is

• Thus, for a given error probability Pr(0), we can find the minimum energy
E required at a specific wavelength λ.
A digital fiber optic link operating at 850-nm requires a maximum BER of
From Eq the probability of error is

Solving for yields = 9ln10 = 20.7 ~ 21.

Hence, an average of 21 photons per pulse is required for this BER