Avalanche Photodiodes (APDs) are widely used in fiber-optic communications as well as imaging and sensing
applications where high sensitivities are needed. Traditional InP-based APD receivers typically offer a 10 dB
improvement in sensitivity up to 10 Gb/s when compared to standard p-i-n based detector counterparts. As the data rates
increase, however, a limited gain-bandwidth product (~100GHz) results in degraded receiver sensitivity. An increasing
amount of research is now focusing on alternative multiplication materials for APDs to overcome this limitation, and one
of the most promising is silicon. The difficulty in realizing a silicon-based APD device at near infrared wavelengths is
that a compatible absorbing material is difficult to find. Research on germanium-on-silicon p-i-n detectors has shown
acceptable responsivity at wavelengths as long as 1550 nm, and this work extends the approach to the more complicated
APD structure. We are reporting here a germanium-on-silicon Separate Absorption Charge and Multiplication (SACM)
APD which operates at 1310 nm, with a responsivity of 0.55A/W at unity gain with long dark current densities. The
measured gain bandwidth product of this device is much higher than that of a typical III-V APD. Other device
performances, like reliability, sensitivity and thermal stability, will also be discussed in this talk. This basic
demonstration of a new silicon photonic device is an important step towards practical APD devices operating at 40 Gb/s,
as well as for new applications which require low cost, high volume receivers with high sensitivity such as imaging and
sensing.
A number of active elements have been demonstrated using the hybrid silicon evanescent platform, including lasers,
amplifiers and detectors. In this paper, two types of hybrid silicon modulators, fulfilling the building blocks in optical
communication on this platform, will be presented. A hybrid silicon electroabsorption modulator, suitable for high speed
interconnects, with 10 dB extinction ratio at -5 V and 16 GHz modulation bandwidth is demonstrated. In addition a
hybrid silicon Mach-Zehnder modulator utilizing carrier depletion in multiple quantum wells is proved with 2 V-mm
voltage-length product, 150 nm optical bandwidth and a large signal modulation up to 10 Gb/s.
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