Optical Transmitter and Receiver Circuit Design

A light source with a driver is called an optical transmitter. By completing the photodiode withal following preamplifier, an optical receiver is obtained. In optical transmitters, laser diodes and LEDs are applied. The optical power of both light sources depends on the injection current I_F. An optical receiver consists of the photodiode and a subsequent preamplifier. Due to the fact that this part is placed in front of the subsequent electronic circuits for signal processing, it is called the front‐end amplifier. A high bandwidth, high receiver sensitivity and a high dynamic range represent the most important requirements of an optical receiver. The frequency‐response characteristics of the equalizer represent a high‐pass filter. It compensates to a certain degree for the decrease of the transfer function from the high‐impedance amplifier. The bandwidth improvement is about the value of the amplification with a constant noise contribution of R_F = R_E.