Abstract
In this paper, we proposed a new mehtod to analyze the performance degradation by timing jitters in the APD (avalanche photodiode) receivers of intensity modulation/direct detection digital optical communication systems where raised cosine pulse-shaping filters are used to reduce the effect of noise while minimizing intersymbol interferences. The proposed analytical method is an extension of an analytical method we have already developed for pin diode receivers, and incorporates the effects of APD's multiplication factor and resulting shot noise. Using the proposed analytical method, we derive an approximated power penalty due to timing jitters based on an assumption of Gaussian distribution for timing jitters, and compare with that of the conventional analytical method. The results obtained from the proposed analytical method show that conventional analytical methods underestimate the influence of timing jitters on the reciver performance. The results also show that APD's multiplication factor which optimizes receiver sensitivity is smaller than that obtained by the conventional analytical method.