Abstract

The recent development of wideband graded-index plastic optical fibers¹ (GI-POFs) has led to the need for high-speed light sources and high-speed detectors at a 650-nm wavelength band, which is a low-optical-loss window for POFs. An available maximum bit rate was evaluated to be as high as 3 Gbit/s for 100-m GI-POF transmission.² Therefore, more than 3 GHz of bandwidth is required for transmitter light sources and detectors in order to fully utilize the wide bandwidth of the GI-POFs. However, the frequency response for semiconductor optical devices operating in the visible-wavelength region has been poorer than that of long-wavelength optical devices applied to optical communication systems. In this paper we report on high-speed and low-threshold-current 650-nm AlGaInP multiple-quantum-well laser diodes (MQW LDs) as well as high-speed GaAs/AlGaInP PIN photodiodes (PDs) as monitoring detectors.

© 1995 Optical Society of America