Theoretical determination of sensitivity penalty for burst mode: fiber optic receivers

Digital burst mode fiber optic receivers are being developed that establish the threshold for determination of a received `1´ or `0´ based on reception of the first few received `1s.´ Such receivers can provide a large dynamic range while allowing the use of a minimum burst preamble. However, a sensitivity penalty with respect to continuous mode receivers which establish an ideal threshold exists. The author shows the origin of this penalty, and by numerical evaluation shows that, for systems in which the noise can be modeled as Gaussian, the penalty is exactly 3.00 dB when a single bit is used for establishing the threshold. This penalty decreases as the number of bits used to establish the threshold is increased, dropping to 0.51 dB when 8 bits are used as a preamble, and to 0.28 dB when 16 bits are used