Belgian Digital Infrastructure Association

Sensitivity of Digital Optical Receiver

In optical communication systems, sensitivity is a measure of how weak an input signal can get before the bit-error ratio (BER) exceeds some specified number. Sensitivity can be expressed as average power (P AVG) in dBm or as optical modulation amplitude (OMA) in W. Bit Error Ratio (BER) In digital communication systems, the decision when to sample and whether the sampled value represents a binary 1 or 0 is affected by noise and signal distortion in the real system and there is nonzero probability of an erroneous decision. The standards body governing the application sets this specified BER. To make a good optical receiver design, it is critical to understand the. Among a group of optical receivers, a receiver is said to be more sensitive if it achieves the same performance with less optical power incident on it.