HIGH SPEED RESONANT-CAVITY InGaAs/InAlAs AVALANCHE PHOTODIODES

The evolution of long-haul optical fiber telecommunications systems to bit rates greater than 10 GB/s has created a need for avalanche photodiodes (APDs) with higher bandwidths and higher gain-bandwidth products than are currently available. It is also desirable to maintain good quantum efficiency and low excess noise. At present, the best performance (f3dB ~ 15 GHz at low gain and gain-bandwidth product ~ 150 GHz) has been achieved by AlInAs/InGaAs(P) multiple quantum well (MQW) APDs. In this paper we report a resonant-cavity InAlAs/InGaAs APD that operates near 1.55 μm. These APDs have achieved very low noise (k equivalent to 0.18) as a result of the very thin multiplication regions that were utilized. The low noise is explained in terms of a new model that accounts for the non-local nature of impact ionization. A unity-gain bandwith of 24 GHz and a gain-bandwidth-product of 290 GHz were achieved.

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High-speed and low-noise SACM avalanche photodiodes with an impact-ionization-engineered multiplication region

IEEE Photonics Technology Letters ◽

10.1109/lpt.2005.851903 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 17 (8) ◽

pp. 1719-1721 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Ning Duan ◽

Shuling Wang ◽

Feng Ma ◽

Ning Li ◽

J.C. Campbell ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Speed ◽

Impact Ionization ◽

Avalanche Photodiodes ◽

Low Noise

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High-speed, low-noise resonant-cavity avalanche photodiodes

Conference Proceedings LEOS'96 9th Annual Meeting IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society ◽

10.1109/leos.1996.565298 ◽

2002 ◽

Author(s):

Hui Nie ◽

K.A. Anselm ◽

C. Hu ◽

B.G. Streetman ◽

J.C. Campbell

Keyword(s):

High Speed ◽

Avalanche Photodiodes ◽

Resonant Cavity ◽

Low Noise

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High speed and high gain-bandwidth-product resonant-cavity InGaAs/InAlAs avalanche photodiodes

10.1109/ofc.1999.767805 ◽

2003 ◽

Author(s):

H. Nie ◽

C. Lenox ◽

G. Kinsey ◽

P. Yuan ◽

A.L. Holmes ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Speed ◽

Avalanche Photodiodes ◽

Resonant Cavity ◽

High Gain ◽

Gain Bandwidth

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Resonant-cavity separate absorption, charge and multiplication avalanche photodiodes with high-speed and high gain-bandwidth product

IEEE Photonics Technology Letters ◽

10.1109/68.661426 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 409-411 ◽

Cited By ~ 57

Author(s):

H. Nie ◽

K.A. Anselm ◽

C. Lenox ◽

P. Yuan ◽

C. Hu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Speed ◽

Avalanche Photodiodes ◽

Resonant Cavity ◽

High Gain ◽

Gain Bandwidth

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Valence band engineering of GaAsBi for low noise avalanche photodiodes

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-24966-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Yuchen Liu ◽

Xin Yi ◽

Nicholas J. Bailey ◽

Zhize Zhou ◽

Thomas B. O. Rockett ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Valence Band ◽

Impact Ionization ◽

Avalanche Photodiodes ◽

Low Noise ◽

Excess Noise ◽

Critical Parameters ◽

Orbit Splitting ◽

Band Engineering ◽

Useful Signal ◽

The Impact

AbstractAvalanche Photodiodes (APDs) are key semiconductor components that amplify weak optical signals via the impact ionization process, but this process’ stochastic nature introduces ‘excess’ noise, limiting the useful signal to noise ratio (or sensitivity) that is practically achievable. The APD material’s electron and hole ionization coefficients (α and β respectively) are critical parameters in this regard, with very disparate values of α and β necessary to minimize this excess noise. Here, the analysis of thirteen complementary p-i-n/n-i-p diodes shows that alloying GaAs with ≤ 5.1 % Bi dramatically reduces β while leaving α virtually unchanged—enabling a 2 to 100-fold enhancement of the GaAs α/β ratio while extending the wavelength beyond 1.1 µm. Such a dramatic change in only β is unseen in any other dilute alloy and is attributed to the Bi-induced increase of the spin-orbit splitting energy (∆so). Valence band engineering in this way offers an attractive route to enable low noise semiconductor APDs to be developed.

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