A transimpedance APD optical receiver operating at 10 Gb/s

The authors report an optical receiver which uses a separate-absorption-and-multiplication avalanche photodiode (SAM-APD) to achieve high sensitivity at a bit rate of 10 Gb/s. A transimpedance front end incorporating HEMT devices is used for high bandwidth and low noise. The sensitivity (bit-error rate of 10/sup -9/) is -28.7 dBm for a return-to-zero signal, and -27.0 dBm for a nonreturn-to-zero signal.>