OpAmps: Strange Frequency Response. Photoreceiver Circuit. AC-DC channel division.

Status
Not open for further replies.

frilance

Member level 1
Joined
Aug 16, 2012
Messages
37
Helped
0
Reputation
0
Reaction score
0
Trophy points
1,286
Activity points
1,703
[For everyone: I want to say sorry in advance for my mistakes writting in english]

Hello Fellas,

I designed a TIA photoreceiver circuit in order to obtain an output voltage from a input current coming from a photodiode.

The schematic of the design and the simulation of the expected frequency response is showed in the attached file "schematicSimulation.PNG" ( ). The only difference from the schematic and the actual circuit I'm testing is the photodiode (respresented in the schematic as a Input Current Source and a parallel 11pF capacitor).

I just want to have an ouput voltage from the first TIA stage up to 50 MHz (Rf = 5KOhms and Cf = 0.7pF can make it) and then divide the signal into 2 paths (with the same cut-off frequency, 10 KHz). I used an active filter for the AC path, using 2 capacitors in the second OpAmp of around 150nF. For the DC path, i used a simple Low Pass filter.

For the Transfer Function - Frequency Response of the circuit, I used an input Laser-Diode Beam focused on the photodiode, and modulated with the Network Analyzer signal (from 5 Hz to 500 MHz.).

The result obtained in the DC output is showed in picture "dcTransferFunction" ( ), and it´s quite the expected one (Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I didn´t have any DAQ card for that Network Analyzer). The cut-off frequency is about 10 KHz.


The problem comes with the AC response. "acTransferFunction".

The high cut-off frequency is about 50 MHz, so that looks OK, but for the low cut-off frequency, first it has this ripple I didn´t expect (this is the worst problem), and then it looks like the response rises again after a short interval going down. I identified some possible sources of errors, but I would appreciate some help to understand what is going on here.

- First, the Laser Diode´s behaviour at low frequencies. It´s quite bad, so I don´t know if the strange behaviour of the ripple is related with that. I think that at least the rising in the response below 10 KHz is related with the Laser Diode.

- I used a piramide-shape series connection of two 1 pF capacitors to make the "Cf = 0.7 pF". The method wasn´t the best, but seeing that the high cut-off frequency is around the expected one (50 MHz) I would say it´s non-related with this capacitor.

- Maybe the use of the same cut-off frequency for both paths (10 Khz) makes the circuit have a resonance or oscilation. Phase margin problems and so on... I don´t know.

- The DC passive low-pass filter affecting the AC part....


Those are some ideas, but maybe somebody can understand better how this works and could help me with it. Maybe it´s just a Laser Diode problem and it´s working as expected....

Thank you in advance.

Kind Regards,
frilance
 
Last edited:

Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…