Optical phaselock receiver with multigigahertz signal bandwidth

Describes a balanced pinFET receiver which employs two signal amplification paths for homodyne detection of multigigabit-per-second, pilot-carrier PSK optical signals. Using narrow-line 1.51 mu m semiconductor lasers, the authors have employed this receiver to phaselock a local oscillator to a 295 pW pilot carrier with 8 degrees RMS phase error.