Noise suppression properties of distributed balanced photodetectors for high performance RF photonic links

Summary form only given. Balanced photodetectors are of great interest to analog fiber optic links because they can suppress relative intensity noise (RIN) of lasers and amplified spontaneous emission noise (ASE) from erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA). When used in conjunction with an external modulator with complementary outputs, shot noise-limited system performance can be achieved. In order to fully exploit the advantages of the balanced systems, balanced photodetectors with high saturation photocurrents and broad bandwidth are required. Monolithically integrated balanced photodetectors offer superior performance (broader bandwidth, better matching of photodiodes) and reduced packaging cost. However, most of the integrated balanced photodetectors reported to date have low saturation photocurrents and are not suitable for analog applications.