InGaAs/AlGaAsSb avalanche photodiode with high gain - bandwidth product

Increasing reliance on the Internet places greater and greater demands for high -speed optical communication systems. Increasing their data transfer rate allows more data to be transferred over existing links. With optical receivers being essential to all optical links, bandwidth performance of key components in receivers, such as avalanche photodiodes (APDs), must be improved. The APDs rely on In0.53Ga0.47As (grown lattice-matched to InP substrates) to efficiently absorb and detect the optical signals with 1310 or 1550 nm wavelength, the optimal wavelengths of operation for these optical links. Thus developing InP -compatible APDs with high gain-bandwidth product (GBP) is important to the overall effort of increasing optical links’ data transfer rate. Here we demonstrate a novel InGaAs/AlGaAsSb APD, grown on an InP substrate, with a GBP of 424 GHz, the highest value reported for InP -compatible APDs, which is clearly applicable to future optical communication systems at or above 10 Gb/s.