PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To widen the band of an optical receiver for optical communication and to improve the sensitivity of the receiver. SOLUTION: The band and sensitivity this optical receiver are simultaneously widened and improved, respectively, in such a way that the band is widened by connecting an inductance for signal amplification in series with the signal amplifying resistor of the forward voltage amplifying section of the receiver and the thermal noise produced from the resistor is reduced by appropriately setting the values of the resistor and inductance. In addition, the conventionally dominant thermal noise which is produced by the channel conductance of a field-effect transistor 1 is equivalently reduced by increasing the input impedance obtained when the gate of the transistor 1 is viewed from the detecting current iPD of a photodiode in the high-frequency range by setting the band width of a negative feedback loop narrower than that of the optical receiver or connecting a feedback inductance in series with a feedback resistor.