Resonant cavity enhanced photodetectors (RCE-PDs) are promising candidates for applications in high-speed optical communications and interconnections. The parasitics effects on these high-speed photodetectors must be carefully considered since they can significantly degrade the performance of the photodetector. In this paper, we will present a complete accurate model for the time response of the RCE-PDs. We will also study the effects of the parasitics of RCE-PDs on their time response and how we can compensate for the performance degradation from these parasitics. This study has been done for both RCE-PIN-PDs and RCE-avalanche photodetectors (RCE-APDs). RCE-separated absorption graded charge multiplication-APD was taken as an example of RCE-APDs. The time response of these RCE-PDs has better performance when compared to those of non RCE-PDs. The parasitics effects include the effects of both of the load resistance and the capacitance of the photodetector. The effects of the inductor that may be added in series with the load are also studied. It is shown that adding an external inductor results in higher performance of the photodetectors and this inductor can compensate some of the degradations resulting from other parasitics. The effects of the parasitics have been investigated for different dimensions of the photodetectors, different values of both the load resistance and the added inductor and also for different multiplication gains for the case of RCE-APDs.

Date Published: 20 December 2004
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 5577, Photonics North 2004: Optical Components and Devices, (20 December 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.566354

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5577:
Photonics North 2004: Optical Components and Devices
John C. Armitage; Simon Fafard; Roger A. Lessard; George A. Lampropoulos, Editor(s)