Optoelectronic devices are electrical-to-optical or optical-to-electrical transducers and are normally used for transmitting and receiving light over a medium which maybe wireless but in most cases Avnet Memec solutions TX/RX over fibre optic cable, of which there are 2 sorts single mode and multi mode.
Products and Technologies that will transmit Light:

LED’s (Incoherent): Light emitting Diodes are Incoherent therefore not accurate enough for use in Fibre Optic Tx/Rx.

Laser Diodes (Coherent): There are many types of Laser diodes some of which are described as follows (for both Transmit and Receive applications):

• Transmitters
  VCSEL’s (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser - Short Wavelength - SW) with Wavelengths from 650nM – 1300nM, Less dispersion of light therefore greater distances can be achieved and they can work up to speeds of 1, 2, 4, 8, and 10Gbps
  DFB – Distributed Feedback Laser (LW) which have a stable wavelength and is used mostly in DWDM (1520nM-1565nM) applications
  FP – Fabry Perot Laser Diode (Long wavelength - LW) which Operates at 1310nM wavelength and High Speed Modulation Capability up to 4Gb/s
• Receivers
  TIA – Trans Impedance Amplifiers which are required as part of Serial Optical receivers/detector at 4.25Gbps
  LA – Limiting Amplifiers which are required as part Serial Optical receivers/detector at 4.25Gbps
  PIN diode – Opto Detectors, Required as part of receiver/detector^

Modules

• SFP – Small Form-Factor Pluggable
• XFP – 10 Gigabit small form factor pluggable
• QSFP – Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable

Applications

LED’s - Multitude of consumer and industrial e.g. Standard Illuminations (Torches, lights, car headlights etc), Light source for Machine visioning, Imaging (Large panels, TV’s etc) Indications (Lighted information signs etc)

VCSEL’s & DFB’s - Datacoms, Telecoms, Sensing, PC Mice, Automotive, Military, Aerospace, Printers. Telecom and datacom applications can be detailed as follows:

• Metro/Access CWDM system
• Data Communication Network
• GbE, SDH/SONET/ATM System
• High speed optical system
• G-PON P-T-MP system