Performance of optical bit rate limiters with pre- or post-optical amplification

A communication system incorporating a bit rate limiter (BRL) device is analyzed using recently proposed statistical models for power splitters and combiners. We also consider the possible optical attenuation and amplification before and after BRL device. We obtain the total output moment generating function (MGF) of the number of photoelectrons at the receiver end for two possible synchronization procedures. Furthermore, we use saddle-point approximation method to evaluate the system performance considering the effects of shot-noise, thermal noise, and source extinction ratio.