The New Focus 1600 Series High-Speed Photoreceivers address the needs of the photodetector community in the area of low-noise, high-gain, RF photoreception. These photoreceivers are AC coupled and are capable of driving up to 1 V peak to peak into a 50 Ω load. The minimum bandwidth is 1 GHz with a current gain of 700 V/A. The performance of these units is achieved through the use of solid RF design together with the implementation of some of the latest advances in commercially available amplifier chips. The detector is shielded to avoid RF pickup.

The Model 1601 photoreceiver consists of a silicon PIN photodiode followed by a low-noise amplifier. The Model 1611 photoreceiver consists of an InGaAs PIN photodiode with the same amplifier. The 1601 photodetector has a maximum current of 5 mA and the 1611 photodetector has a maximum current of 10 mA. Therefore, the maximum input optical power is 10 mW for both detectors. Power is delivered through a connector on the back of the unit, and the entire package is shielded to eliminate RF pickup. The AC-coupled 1601 and 1611 incorporate blocking capacitors and a DC bias monitor circuit. The corner frequency of the high-pass filter on the AC-coupled output is approximately 30 kHz; the corner frequency of the low-pass filter on the DC bias monitor output is approximately 20 kHz. The DC bias monitor gain is 10 V/mA.