Burst mode receiver based on SOA

In this paper, we propose a burst mode receiver model based on semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and PIN photodiode, which operates as both a nonlinear amplifier when receiving a high power packet and a linear amplifier in small signal case. Experimental results show that a 21 dB input dynamic range is reduced to 11 dB power variation with proper SOA parameters and the signal quality is excellent in higher power operation. This is also a promise design in optical packet switching (OPS) and optical burst switching, where higher bit rate burst mode receiver is required. With this model, the high sensitivity demand to use avalance photodiode (APD) is also substituted by PIN.