Resonant cavity enhanced photodiodes for optically preamplified receivers

The bit error rate performance of an OOK optically preamplified receiver using a resonant photodiode is considered. The effect of the relationship between the normalised absorption coefficient and the device end race reflectivities upon error rates is quantified. Using integrate and dump detection, a sensitivity comparable to an external filter is achievable (89 photons:bit for a 10^-9 error rate). To obtain this performance the photodiode must conform to a matching condition and the normalised absorption coefficient should be between 0.001 and 0.0013