The State Unitary Enterprise "RD& P Center "Orion”, Moscow, Russia

Possibility of designing an optical heterodyne detector based on n-type Cs_xHg_1-xTe photoresistor is discussed. Dependencies of a threshold power on a heterodyne optical power, fixed voltage bias on a photoresistor, preamplifier frequency and noises are calculated. It is shown that small-size photoresistors can compete successfully with photodiodes in a frequency band of up to 40 MHz.