On the design and performance of a 6-18 GHz three-tier matrixamplifier

A 3×3 matrix amplifier for the 6-18-GHz frequency band has been developed. Using MESFETs fabricated on VPE (vapor-phase epitaxial) material, gains of G=23.5±0.5 dB with a maximum reflection loss of RL=-10 dB were obtained from 5.2 to 18.7 GHz. Gain improvement to G=29.1±1.1 dB at a worst-case reflection loss of RL=-7.5 dB between 4.6 and 18.3 GHz when MBE (molecular-beam epitaxial) material was used for the MESFETs. In addition to the experimental results, important design considerations, especially in regard to the termination impedances of the idle ports, are discussed     

A 2-18 GHz low-noise/high-gain amplifier module

The effectiveness of the two-tier matrix amplifier as a very-low-noise device with very high associated gains across multioctave frequency bands is theoretically and experimentally demonstrated. Experimental modules whose topology is based on a computer-optimized design exhibit an average noise figure of F=3.5 dB with an associated average gain of G=17.8 dB across the 2-18 GHz frequency band. These state-of-the-art results were achieved with GaAs MESFETs whose minimum noise figure is F=2.2 dB at 18 GHz and whose gate dimensions are 0.25×200 μm. The design considerations and the test results are discussed in detail     

Noise performance of erbium-doped fiber amplifier pumped at 1.49μm, and application to signal preamplification at 1.8 Gbit/s

Direct measurements of the noise figure of an erbium-doped fiber amplifier are described. With an amplifier gain as high as 36 dB, a noise figure as low as 4.1 dB was measured. Noise figures remained below 6 dB for signal wavelengths within the high gain (G>20 dB) region of the amplifier. An optical receiver sensitivity of -43 dBm at 1.8 Gb/s, corresponding to 215 photons/b, was achieved using the fiber amplifier as an optical preamplifier for a direct detection receiver     

A reliability model for connector contacts

Connector contacts have a typical end-of-life behavior during accelerated life testing. A model that predicts the change in resistance (ΔR) for an aging contact is developed based on that behavior. The model shows that the duration of accelerated life tests can sometimes be reduced by up to 50%, resulting in substantial time and cost savings. Analysis of the model leads to several unexpected conclusions. For example, the evaluation of contact reliability, using ΔR as a parameter, does not agree with a time-to-failure approach in which each individual contact is assumed to have a specific failure time. The agreement is restored by the use of change in conductance (ΔG) ratios. The use of ΔG by itself leads directly to the conclusion that contact reliability evaluated at some point in a contact's life explicitly depends on the resistance of the contact when it was put into use     

Performance degradations of multigigabit-per-second NRZ/RZlightwave systems due to gain saturation in traveling-wave semiconductoroptical amplifiers

A nonlinear model for a travelling-wave semiconductor optical amplifier has been used to determine eye closure degradations for 2.4 and 10 Gb/s NRZ/RZ lightwave systems due to gain saturation effects in the optical amplifier. At 10 Gb/s, with a carrier lifetime of 300 ps, the results indicate that the penalty is less than 1 dB for both NRZ and RZ systems provided that the ratio of the input power (P_in ) to the saturation output power (P_sat) is less than -17 dB. The NRZ system penalty is slightly larger than the RZ penalty when P_in/P_sat is larger than -17 dB. For example, with P_in/P_sat=-10 dB, the NRZ system penalty is about 2.8 dB versus 2 dB for the RZ system. The system penalty at 2.4 Gb/s is slightly less than that at 10 Gb/s. At P _in/P_sat=-10 dB, the NRZ system penalty is about 2.5 dB versus 1.5 dB for RZ     

On the semiconductor laser logarithmic gain-current densityrelation

The simplified relation, α=G₀ In (η _iJ/J₀), between material gain α and current density J is shown to be a very good shape approximation, for quantum wells and bulk materials, essentially independent of the type of recombination processes present. Simulations show that for a given material system, G₀ decreases by only about 30% from pure electron-hole-recombination-dominated to pure Auger-recombination-dominated. A generic quantum-well situation is explored to reveal the density of states and recombination coefficient dependence of G₀ and to formulate simple estimates for G₀. The results were tested against published data for eight quantum-well diode lasers. The predicted values of G ₀ were generally found to be in agreement with experiments only for the wider gap diodes. The discrepancies were attributed in part to carrier induced absorption, and it is shown that the formalism can be modified in selected cases to incorporate this without changing the basic form of the gain. A new expression which relates the temperature dependence of the measured parameters to the characteristic temperature, T₀, is provided     

Counting the number of minimum cuts in undirected multigraphs

The problem of counting the number of cuts with the minimum cardinality in an undirected multigraph arises in various applications, such as testing the super-λ-ness of a graph, as described by F.T. Boesch (1986), and calculating upper and lower bounds on the probabilistic connectedness of a stochastic graph G in which edges are subject to failure. It is shown that the number |C( G)| of cuts with the minimum cardinality λ(G) in a multiple graph G=(V,E) can be computed in O(|E|+λ(G)|V|² +λ(G)|C(G)||V|) time     

When are two geometric Goppa codes equal?

Sufficient and necessary conditions are obtained for which the geometric Goppa codes C(D,G) and C( D,H) are equal for two divisors G and H . In particular, it is proven that if G and H are two effective divisors of the same degree smaller than n-1, then C(D,G) and C(D,H ) are equal, if and only if G=H     

On the Hamming distance properties of group codes

Under certain mild conditions, the minimum Hamming distance D of an (N, K, D) group code C over a non-abelian group G is bounded by D⩽N -2K+2 if K⩽N/2, and is equal to 1 if K>N/2. Consequently, there exists no (N, K, N-K+1) group code C over an non-abelian group G if 1<K<N. Moreover, any normal code C with a non-abelian output space has minimum Hamming distance equal to D=1. These results follow from the fact that non-abelian groups have nontrivial commutator subgroups. Finally, if C is an (N, K, D) group code over an abelian group G that is not elementary abelian, then there exists an (N, K, D) group code over a smaller elementary abelian group G'. Thus, a group code over a general group G cannot have better parameters than a conventional linear code over a field of the same size as G     

Limiter-discriminator detection of a coherent optical heterodyneM-ary CPFSK receiver

The performance of a coherent optical M-ary continuous-phase frequency-shift-keying (CPFSK) receiver using limiter-discriminator (L-D) detection is investigated. It is shown that L-D detection of CPFSK optical signals offers the best performance for a large normalized IF beat spectral linewidth, ΔνT. When the modulation index is unity, the receiver is immune to laser phase noise and can produce (M/4) exp (-SNR) symbol error probability, which may be considered as the upper bound if the optimal modulation index is used (SNR is the signal-to-noise ratio per symbol). Optimum modulation indexes are 0.8 and 1 at ΔνT=1% and ΔνT=2%, respectively, for M=4, 8, and 16     

Bandgap narrowing and emitter efficiency in heavily doped emitterstructures revisited

The developments of heavy doping effects and of bandgap narrowing (BGN) concepts during the last two decades are critically discussed. The differences between the real bandgap reduction ΔE_g and the apparent electrical bandgap reduction ΔG are once more set forth, showing the precise meaning of the density-of-states and degeneracy contributions to ΔG. From these concepts, the author indicated previously that for negligible recombination the minority-carrier emitter current (J_pe ) is given by a Mertens-type results. It is shown in this work that in the presence of surface and (or) bulk recombination (Auger and SRH) the result of C.R. Selvakumar and D.J. Roulston is recovered; however, the electrical field in the emitter and the effective intrinsic density of carriers are not those used by Selvakumar and Roulston (1987) but, on the contrary, these quantities are given by the detailed expressions of the author's previous work (see A.H. Marshak and C.M. Van Vliet, 1984)     

Index system and separability of constant weight Gray codes

A number system is developed for the conversion of natural numbers to the codewords of the Gray code G(n,k) of length n and weight k, and vice versa. The focus is on the subcode G(n,k) of G(n) consisting of those words of G(n) with precisely k 1-bits, 0<k<n. This code is called the constant weight Gray code of length n and weight k. As an application sharp lower and upper bounds are derived for the value of |i-j|, where i and j are indices of codewords g_i and g_j of G(n,k) such that they differ in precisely 2 m bits     

Tensile-strained InGaAs/InGaAsP quantum-well optical amplifierswith a wide spectral gain region at 1.55 μm

A tensile-strained InGaAsP/InP multi-quantum-well optical amplifier is constructed which has ⩾92 nm bandwidth at 16-dB gain for 50-mA drive current. The wide gain bandwidth is a result of both n=1 and n=2 contributions from the e→1 h transition. These results suggest wide tunability for lasers made from this material     

Analysis of a modified Hebbian rule

A modified Hebbian rule using the matrix G=sgn(X ^TX) to induce a certain mapping is discussed. This mapping g is specified as soon as one has chosen the m×n matrix X over U to construct G by use of the above expression. The analysis of g relies on simple counting arguments and on the use of Stirling's approximation to obtain asymptotic results     

Effects of localized interface defects caused by hot-carrier stressin n-channel MOSFETs at low temperature

Hot-carrier stressing was carried out on 1-μm n-type MOSFETs at 77 K with fixed drain voltage V_d=5.5 V and gate voltage V_g varying from 1.5 to 6.5 V. It was found that the maximum transconductance degradation ΔG_m and threshold voltage shift ΔV_t, do not occur at the same V_g. As well, ΔK_t is very small for the V_g <V_d stress regime, becomes significant at V_g≈V_d, and then increases rapidly with increasing V_g, whereas ΔG_m has its maximum maximum in the region of maximum substrate current. The behavior is explained by the localized nature of induced defects, which is also responsible for a distortion of the transconductance curves and even a slight temporary increase in the transconductance during stress     

Generation of short pulses of coherent electromagnetic radiation ina free-electron laser amplifier

Theoretical and experimental studies of the evolution of a frequency-chirped pulse under the influence of both phase and gain dispersion effects induced by the free-electron laser interaction are presented. For the experimental parameters used (electron beam voltage V=150 kV, wiggler periodicity l_w=3.5 cm, gain ~10 dB, input pulse width Δt~200 ns, frequency w ₀/2π=10 GHz, and frequency chirp α/2π~5 MHz/ns), pulses of a few nanoseconds were generated after an interaction length of 2.30 m, in good agreement with theoretical expectations     

Modeling erbium-doped fiber amplifiers

Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers are modeled using the propagation and rate equations of a homogeneous two-level laser medium. Numerical methods are used to analyze the effects of optical modes and erbium confinement on amplifier performance, and to calculate both the gain and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) spectra. Fibers with confined erbium doping are completely characterized from easily measured parameters: the ratio of the linear ion density to fluorescence lifetime, and the absorption of gain spectra. Analytical techniques then allow accurate evaluation of gain, saturation, and noise in low-gain amplifiers (G≲20 dB)     

Low-power performance of 0.5-μm JFET for low-cost MMIC's inpersonal communications

The low-power microwave performance of an enhancement-mode ion-implanted GaAs JFET is reported. A 0.5-μm×100-μm E-JFET with a threshold voltage of V_th=0.3 V achieved a maximum DC transconductance of g_m=489 mS/mm at V _ds=1.5 V and I_ds=18 mA. Operating at 0.5 mW of power with V_ds=0.5 V and I_ds =1 mA, the best device on a 3-in wafer achieved a noise figure of 0.8 dB with an associated gain of 9.6 dB measured at 4 GHz. Across a 3-in wafer the average noise figure was F_min=1.2 dB and the average associated gain was G_a=9.8 dB for 15 devices measured. These results demonstrate that the E-JFET is an excellent choice for low-power personal communication applications     

Performance parameters of a wavelength-division demultiplexer madewith a single 3×3 coupler optical fiber ring or loopresonator

The performance parameters of a two-channel demultiplexer made with a single 3×3 coupler fiber ring or loop resonator are evaluated theoretically. These parameters include crosstalk, output intensity of the selected channel, and channel separation. Their dependence on the parameters of the coupler and the fiber such as the coupling length of the coupler, kd, the phase change of the fiber delay line, &thetas;, and the round-trip amplitude transmission coefficient of the fiber ring or loop G, which is the product of the amplitude transmission coefficients of the coupler and the fiber delay line and the amplitude gain of the degenerate two-wave mixing, is investigated. It is found that the best performance can be obtained at G=1