Single HBT based optical receiver front-end

Abstract

We present the design and analysis of an optical receiver front-end configuration that uses a single heterojunction bipolar transistor for both photodetection and amplification purpose. The performance characteristics an InP/InGaAs HBT receiver operating in 1.55 μm wavelength region have been studied on the basis of our model. Theoretical results indicate a high transimpedance gain (∼ 54 dBΩ), a large bandwidth (∼ 29.5 GHz) and a reasonably high sensitivity (-24 dBm at 10 Gb/s) for the receiver configuration. Use of a single HBT in the front-end would greatly simplify the fabrication of optoelectronic integrated circuit (OEIC) receiver in the monolithic form.