Influence of the various types of noise on jitter performance in binary direct detection optical communications

A general analytical method based on the moment generating function (MGF) was developed to compute and optimise the jitter performance in optical fibre regenerators. It is capable of dealing with any type of prefilter, nonlinearity, linear narrow band-pass filter, photo-detector device, optical pulse shape, output filter pulse shape and line-code. In this paper, the authors analyse the influence of circuit, quantum signal and dark current noises on jitter performance in binary direct detection optical receivers. It is seen that, in terms of jitter performance and with low signal to noise ratio, an avalanche photodiode (APD), with quantum signal noise dominance, presents the best choice; a PIN, in which the circuit noise is dominant, is the next preferred choice and a Ge APD, with dark current noise dominance, is the worst choice. The results obtained with application of this method allow the development of design rules for the optical receivers