Overcoming the Bandwidth-Quantum Efficiency Trade-Off in Conventional Photodetectors

Abstract

Optical systems and microwave photonics applications rely heavily on high-performance photodetectors having a high bandwidth-efficiency product. The main types of photodetector structures include Schottky and PIN-photodiodes, heterojunction phototransistors, avalanche photodetectors, and metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors. Verticallyilluminated photodetectors intrinsically present bandwidth-efficiency limitations, but these have been mitigated by new innovations over the years in quantum well photodetectors, edge-coupled photodetectors and resonant-cavity enhanced photodetectors for improved photophysical characteristics. Edge-coupled ultra-high-speed photodetectors have yielded high conversion efficiencies, and the active device structure of resonantcavity-enhanced photodetectors allows wavelength selectivity and optical field enhancement due to resonance, enabling photodetectors to be made thinner and hence faster, while simultaneously increasing the quantum efficiency at the resonant wavelengths. Single-photon avalanche diodes have been developed, which combine an ultimate sensitivity with excellent timing accuracy. Further advances in addressing the bandwidthquantum efficiency trade-off have incorporated photon-trapping nanostructures and plasmonic nanoparticles. Nanowire photodetectors have also demonstrated the highest photophysical performance to date.