Performance of linear avalanche photodiodebased balanced homodyne receiver (APD BHD) is examined and compared to reference BHD based on PIN photodiodes, in terms of common mode rejection ratio (CMRR), quantum-to-classical noise clearance (QCNR) and sensitivity in coherent reception of quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulation format. NIST randomness validation was performed on sampled data for quantum random number generator (QRNG). Achieved CMRR values were 50 dB and 30 dB at 100 MHz and 1 GHz, respectively. QCNR of 20 dB at low input power of -20 dBm was demonstrated. Optical sensitivity of APD BHD coherent receiver compared to its PIN BHD counterpart can be improved by 3 dB at low local oscillator (LO) powers, whereas for high LO powers the sensitivity of APD BHD approaches the values for PIN BHD.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.