High-speed detection at two micrometres with monolithic silicon photodiodes

Ackert, Jason J., Thomson, David J., Shen, Li, Peacock, Anna C., Jessop, Paul E., Reed, Graham T., Mashanovich, Goran Z. and Knights, Andrew P. (2015) High-speed detection at two micrometres with monolithic silicon photodiodes. Nature Photonics, 9 (6), 393-396. (doi:10.1038/nphoton.2015.81).

Abstract

With continued steep growth in the volume of data transmitted over optical networks there is a widely recognized need for more sophisticated photonics technologies to forestall a ‘capacity crunch’[1]. A promising solution is to open new spectral regions at wavelengths near 2µm and to exploit the long-wavelength transmission and amplification capabilities of hollowcore photonic-bandgap fibres[2,3] and the recently available thulium-doped fibre amplifiers[4]. To date, photodetector devices for this window have largely relied on III-V materials[5] or, where the benefits of integration with silicon photonics are sought, GeSn alloys, which have been demonstrated thus far with only limited utility[6-9]. Here, we describe a silicon photodiode operating at 20 Gb/s in this wavelength region. The detector is compatible with standard silicon processing and is integrated directly with silicon-on-insulator waveguides, which suggests future utility in silicon-based mid-infrared integrated optics for applications in communications.

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Contributors

Author: Anna C. Peacock

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