Simplified model for power penalty when using PIN and APD receivers

We present a characterization of power penalty using p-i-n (PIN) and avalanche photodiode (APD) receivers for different extinction ratios (ER) of the transmitted signal. A simple approach based on experimental fitting is presented to describe the power penalty. The model is in a good agreement with the experiment, predicting both PIN and APD results accurately, even considering that the characterized devices may vary considerably in their intrinsic parameters. The fitting parameter from the proposed model was extracted using a mean squared error (MSE) based fitting function. Theoretical curves were obtained by fitting the numerical results to the experimental data for MSE=10−3.