Large diameter high-speed InGaAs receivers for free-space lasercom

The U. S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and OptoGration, Inc. have collaborated in the development and testing of large area, high speed InGaAs avalanche photodiode (APD) receivers for use in free-space lasercom systems. A 200 micron diameter InGaAs APD receiver has been tested in a free-space lasercom testbed and has demonstrated sensitivities of -42.4 dBm at 622 Mbps and -44.8 dBm at 155 Mbps. A 100 micron diameter receiver has been tested with a resulting sensitivity of -35.75 dBm at 2.4883 Gbps. These receivers are made possible due to OptoGration's capability to manufacture a large area, high speed InGaAs APD with an effective ionization ratio of < 0.2 and by matching the APD device with an appropriate transimpedance amplifier and limiting amplifier. Development and testing of the APD receivers will be described below.

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