Optical Characterization and Nanophotonics Laboratory

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Silicon Based Resonant Cavity Enhanced Photodetectors

Members: Virginia Martinez, M. Selim Ünlü

Alumni: Olufemi Isiade Dosunmu, Matthew Kent Emsley, Steven Menn

High bandwidth short distance communications standards are being developed based on parallel optical interconnect fiber arrays to meet the needs of increasing data rates of inter-chip communication in modern computer architecture. To ensure that this standard becomes an attractive option for computer systems, low cost components must be implemented on both the transmitting and receiving end of the fibers. To meet this low cost requirement silicon based receiver circuits are the most viable option, however, manufacturing high speed, high efficiency silicon photodetectors presents a technical challenge. Resonant cavity enhanced (RCE) Si photodetectors have been shown to provide the required bandwidth-efficiency product and we have recently developed a method to reproduce them through commercially available fabrication techniques. In this work, commercially reproducible silicon wafers with a 90% reflectance buried distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) are used to create Si-RCE photodetector arrays for optical interconnects. The Si-RCE photodetectors have 40% quantum efficiency at 860 nm, a FWHM of 25 ps, and a 3dB bandwidth in excess of 10 GHz. We also demonstrate Si-RCE 12x1 photodetector arrays that have been fabricated and packaged with silicon based amplifiers to demonstrate the feasibility of a low cost monolithic silicon photoreceiver array.

Optical interconnects represent the future of not only the telecommunications industry, but also the entire computing industry. It may sound like a bold statement, the computing industry has been getting along quite well for decades, but a simple look at the numbers will tell the story. Figure 1 shows the growth in bandwidth for CPU's and the peripheral bus.

It is clear that for the past two decades a chasm has been opening between the two. One can consider the processing power of a computer to be inherently serial in nature, combining input/output (I/O) and CPU speeds. When I/O lags CPU speed by an order of magnitude, the computational throughput of the computer is no longer determined by the CPU. In this situation the CPU becomes a commodity within computer architecture, which is clearly something that Intel has strived to avoid for many years.

Publications

S. Vasile, J. Lipson, and M. S. Ünlü, "Challenges of developing resonant cavity photoncounting detectors at 1064nm ," SPIE Photonics West 2010 - LASE, 23-28 January 2010

R. Audet, S. A. Clasussen, e. H. Edwards, S. Ren, R. K. Schaevitz, E. Tasyurek, O. I. Dosunmu, M. S. Ünlü, and D. A. Miller, "Surface-Normal Ge/SiGe Quantum-Confined Stark Effect Electroabsorption Modulators," 2009 International Nano-Optoelectronics Workshop, 2-15 August 2009

M. S. Ünlü, and M. K. Emsley, "Reflective Layer Buried In Silicon and Method of Fabrication," United States Patent Issued, No. 7,501,303, 10 March 2009

M. Ghioni, G. Armellini, P. Maccagnani, I. Rech, M. K. Emsley, and M. S. Ünlü, "Resonant-Cavity-Enhanced Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes on Reflecting Silicon Substrates," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters , Vol. 20, No. 6, 15 March 2008, pp. 413-415

M. Ghioni, G. Armellini, P. Maccagnani, I. Rech, M. K. Emsley, and M. S. Ünlü, "Resonant-Cavity-Enhanced Single Photon Avalanche Diodes," Single-Photon Workshop 2007, 25 September 2007

P. Muller, M. K. Emsley, A. Tajalli, M. Ataraodi, M. S. Ünlü, and Y. Leblebici, "Design and Integration of All-Silicon Fiber-Optic Receivers for Multi-Gigabit Chip-to-Chip Links," European Solid-State Circuits Conference, Montreux, Switzerland, 18th-22nd September 2006

M. S. Ünlü, "Applications of microresonators: from photodetectors to biological sensing and imaging (Keynote Presentation)," European Optical Society Topical Meeting: Optical Microsystems, 15 September 2005

O. I. Dosunmu, D. D. Cannon, M. K. Emsley, L. C. Kimerling, and M. S. Ünlü, "High-Speed Resonant Cavity Enhanced Ge Photodetectors on Reflecting Si Substrates for 1550-nm Operation," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters , Vol. 17, No. 1, January 2005, pp. 175-177

M. Sahin, K. Gray, S. Menn, and M. S. Ünlü, "Floating Light-Activated Micro-Electrical Stimulators," 2005 Neural Interfaces Workshop, Bethesda, MD, September 7-9, 2005., 2005

O. I. Dosunmu, D. D. Cannon, M. K. Emsley, L. C. Kimerling, and M. S. Ünlü, "High Speed Resonant Cavity Enhanced Ge Photodetectors on Reflecting Si Substrates for 1550 nm Operation," Proceedings of IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society 2004 Annual Meeting, 7-11 November 2004, pp. 148-149

O. I. Dosunmu, D. D. Cannon, M. K. Emsley, L. C. Kimerling, and M. S. Ünlü, "High-Speed Resonant Cavity Enhanced Ge Photodetectors on Si Reflecting Substrates for 1550nm Operation," International Topical Meeting on Microwave Photonics, 4-6 October 2004, pp. 266-268

O. I. Dosunmu, D. D. Cannon, M. K. Emsley, B. Ghyselen, J. Liu, L. C. Kimerling, and M. S. Ünlü, "Resonant Cavity Enhanced Ge Photodetectors for 1550nm Operation on Reflecting Si Substrates," IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol. 10, No. 4, July/August 2004, pp. 694 - 701

M. S. Ünlü, M. K. Emsley, O. I. Dosunmu, P. Muller, and Y. Leblebici, "High-speed Si resonant cavity enhanced photodetectors and arrays," Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A, Vol. 22, No. 3, 14 May 2004, pp. 781-787

O. I. Dosunmu, D. D. Cannon, M. K. Emsley, B. Ghyselen, J. Liu, L. C. Kimerling, and M. S. Ünlü, "Germanium on double-SOI photodetectors for 1550-nm operation," Proceedings of SPIE: Semiconductor Photodetectors, Vol. 5353, 24-29 January 2004, pp. 65-71

M. K. Emsley, O. I. Dosunmu, P. Muller, Y. Leblebici, and M. S. Ünlü, "Silicon Resonant Cavity Enhanced 12x1 Photodetector Arrays For Optical Interconnect Receiver Integration," Proceedings of IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society 2003 Annual Meeting, Vol. 1, 27-28 October 2003, pp. 67-68

O. I. Dosunmu, M. K. Emsley, D. D. Cannon, B. Ghyselen, L. C. Kimerling, and M. S. Ünlü, "Germanium on Double-SOI Photodetectors for 1550nm Operation," Proceedings of IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society 2003 Annual Meeting, Vol. 2, 29-30 October 2003, pp. 853-854

M. K. Emsley, O. I. Dosunmu, M. S. Ünlü, P. Muller, and Y. Leblebici, "Realization of High-Efficiency 10 GHz Bandwidth Silicon Photodetector Arrays for Fully Integrated Optical Data Communication Interfaces," Proceedings of the 33rd European Solid-State Device Research Conference, 16-18 September 2003, pp. 47-50

M. K. Emsley, O. I. Dosunmu, P. Muller, M. S. Ünlü, and Y. Leblebici, "Silicon Resonant-Cavity-Enhanced Photodetector Arrays For Optical Interconnects," Proceedings of SPIE: Active and Passive Optical Components for WDM Communications III, Vol. 5246, 8-11 September 2003, pp. 409-421

M. K. Emsley, "Silicon Resonant Cavity Enhanced Photodetector Arrays for Optical Interconnects," Ph.D. Dissertation, May 2003

M. S. Ünlü, O. I. Dosunmu, and M. K. Emsley, "High-Speed Photodetectors for Optical Communications," Wiley Encyclopedia of Telecommunications, December 2002

M. K. Emsley, O. I. Dosunmu, and M. S. Ünlü, "Silicon Substrates With Buried Distributed Bragg Reflectors for Resonant Cavity-Enhanced Optoelectronics," IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol. 8, July/August 2002, pp. 948-955

M. K. Emsley, O. I. Dosunmu, and M. S. Ünlü, "High-Speed Resonant-Cavity-Enhanced Silicon Photodetectors on Reflecting Silicon-on-Insulator Substrates," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters , Vol. 14, April 2002, pp. 519-521

M. K. Emsley, O. I. Dosunmu, and M. S. Ünlü, "High-Efficiency, 10 GHz Bandwidth Resonant-Cavity-Enhanced Silicon Photodetectors Operating at 850 nm Wavelength," Proceedings of IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society 2001 Annual Meeting, Vol. 2, 12-13 November 2001, pp. 839-840

M. K. Emsley, and M. S. Ünlü, "Epitaxy-Ready Reflecting Substrates for Resonant-Cavity-Enhanced Silicon Photodetectors," Proceedings of IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society 2000 Annual Meeting, Vol. 2, 13-16 November 2000, pp. 432-433

M. K. Emsley, "Reflecting SOI Substrates For Optoelectronic Applications," Master Thesis, May 2000

M. S. Ünlü, E. Özbay, D. H. Christensen, R. P. Mirin, and E. Towe, "High-speed Resonant Cavity Enhanced Schottky Photodiodes ," Optics & Photonics News, December 1999

Collaborators

SOITEC S.A.
Axcelis Corporation
MIT - Electronic Materials Research Group
Microelectronic Systems Laboratory (LSM) at EPFL

Support

Army Research Laboratory