Digital communications above 1 Gb/s using 890-nm surface-emitting light-emitting diodes

We report high-speed digital modulation of GaAs-AlGaAs light-emitting diodes. Open eye patterns and bit error rates less than 10/sup -9/ were obtained for data rates from 750 Mb/s to 1.7 Gb/s. These results are the first report, to our knowledge, of error-free digital modulation experiments for LEDs at bit rates above 1 Gb/s.