photodiodes & voltage amplifiers for 10 MHz operation

Will a transistor output or logic output Optocoupler do the job ? I think some will work at this sort of data rate.
Check out Farnell, Digikey, RS, the usual suspects.

Try this link for Farnell, it has the various types of opto' if you scroll down the left edge (the site is a tad user hostile IMHO)

Del

Here

http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/opa2380.pdf

you`ll find a datasheet of the cheap OPA380 with an application for bandwith of 10MHz.

Regard that in photoconductive mode you get less sensitivity lowering the receive distance.
Good luck Uwe

These are fun and easy to integrate if you are looking to use plastic fiber optics: http://www.i-fiberoptics.com/Fiber_optic_led_photodetectors.php

Some are available at Digikey.

For 10 MHz or so just about any photodiode from a catalog will do. Phototransistors have inherent limitations in speed, the do not make it.

go to www.Jameco. com

The diodes themselves have no capability to drive anything. Additionally, your job is to use it in a constant voltage mode as much as you can. Reason is, that all photodiodes have large surface to catch incoming light. That at the same time means sizeable capacitance. If you pick up variable voltage from it, the incoming light first charges its capacitance, then may give a signal to the amplifier. On the other hand, if you take current from the diode (at a hopefully stable voltage) charging that internal capacity is not an issue speedwise.

For current input amplifier (transimpedance amplifier) look at the LM3900 family. Any member will do. Having mostly 4 amplifiers in one DIP housing will do anything for your signal conditioning requirements. Look at their Application notes, they are excellent. You will have circuit diagramms there for your application.

The LM3900 is a rather old design and the unity gain bandwith is only 2.5 MHz and that will be far too less - there are newer ones with fet input and bandwiths near 100MHz or even more to get a real chance of having a high quality signal of 10MHz.
Regards Uwe

Hello again, Guest.

Hamamatsu manufactures a wide range of PIN photodiodes and related optoelectronic components and is one of the best sources of photodiodes (PIN and otherwise) I can think of. You might wanna check 'em out.

Here are links to a few PIN photodiodes that might be suitable for your application. Of the bunch, the S5052 is probably the least expensive:

S5052 - 500 MHz bandwidth (bw); peak wavelength (λ_peak): 900 nm (IR), λ_min: 320 nm (UV), λ_max: 1000 nm (IR)

S5971 - 100 MHz bw; λ_peak: 900 nm, , λ_min: 320 nm, λ_max: 1060 nm

S5972 - 500 MHz bw; λ_peak: 800 nm, λ_min: 320 nm, λ_max: 1000 nm

S5973 - 1 GHz bw; λ_peak: 760 nm, λ_min: 320 nm, λ_max: 1000 nm

You may have noticed that these photodiodes have bandwidths far in excess of your needs. PIN photodiodes tend to be fast. You'd probably have better luck finding a slow Bugatti Veyron! ("Slow" being a rather relative term. 500 MHz is "slow" when your application demands a BW_min of 3.5 GHz!)

Also some application circuit examples using silicon photodiodes.

Hope this was helpful.

-e