Abstract

A packaged semiconductor laser preamplified receiver (LaserPIN) has been developed for use in long haul and wavelength selective systems at a data rate of 2.4 Gbit/s. This receiver has two major advantages over other types of receiver at high data rates. First, the receiver has a sensitivity of −36 dBm at 2.4 Gbit/s (BER = 10⁻⁹ at 2⁷ – 1 PRBS), which is an improvement over the best published results for APD receivers at the same bit rate,¹ and, second, the packaged LaserPIN receiver offers tunability for wavelength selection in the 1550-nm window via a tunable narrowband filter. The receiver is built in a modular form which allows for insertion of future wider bandwidth elements. At these higher bit rates the full potential of these receivers will be realized as the performance should be substantially better than that of APDs.² Figure 1 shows a schematic of the receiver, and a photograph is shown in Fig. 2.

© 1990 Optical Society of America