High performance silicon waveguide germanium photodetector

High-performance Ge-on-SOI p-i-n waveguide photodetectors with different sizes were fabricated. The performances, in terms of dark-current, photo current responsivity and 3-dB bandwidth, were well studied. A responsivity of 0.842 A/W at 1550 nm and dark current of 70 nA was measured from this detector at -1 V. The detector with a size of 4 μm× 10 μm demonstrated an optical band width of 19 GHz at -5 V for 1550 nm. Both the experimental results and the finite-difference time domain simulation show that, when the device size is above a certain threshold, the absorption is not sensitively dependent on such designing parameters as the width and length of the photodetector.