Optical fiber communication experiment at 5 Gbit/sec

A Gbit/sec optical fiber communication experiment was performed. The maximum speed was 3 Gbit/sec with a BH laser and 5 Gbits/sec with a TJS laser. A 500-m single-mode fiber was used, and the power was coupled by mounting the laser butt-end to the fiber, giving a minimum loss of 10 dB. The receiver employed a Si-avalanche photodiode with an impulse-response width of 210 psec (FWHM) and a 10-Gbit/sec and gate built from GaAs MESFETs. Bit-error-rate measurement values of <10(-9) prove the feasibility of optical fiber transmission at 5 Gbit/sec.