Performance Analysis of Avalanche Photo-Diode Detector Based Low Noise Optical Receiver

Abstract

An avalanche photodiode (APD) detector is a sensitive photon detector when operated near breakdown voltage to achieve the highest internal gain. Due to low level of output from the APD, it is required to add trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) and cascaded stage of post-amplifier (PA) for amplification in addition to bias supply circuit for the design of optical receiver. The noise contribution from each component of the optical receiver is required to perform for low-level light detection application. At higher operating gain, the APD also contributes to the total noise level. In this paper, we have described the detail about circuit, simulation of the equivalent circuit of detector, detail noise calculations with bandwidth of more than 1 MHz, and frequency response of the receiver. The in-house proto-type circuit is successfully tested with APD for the detection of photons given from the fibre-optic with the laser diode as an optical source in laboratory. We believe that the work described here will find application in medical instrumentation, automobile industry, and signal communication area.