Foundry-Enabled High-Power Photodetectors for Microwave Photonics

Abstract

We report on arrayed germanium-on-silicon waveguide photodetectors for high-power analog applications utilizing the AIM Photonics silicon foundry. Photodetector arrays with two, four, and eight elements reach output powers of -0.4 dBm, 10 dBm, and 14.3 dBm at 18 GHz, 12 GHz, and 5 GHz, respectively. The 4-photodiode array has an output third order intercept point (OIP3) above 20 dBm up to 12 GHz and shows a 5-dB improvement over a single photodiode. An integrated 20 GHz receiver based on a pair of balanced photodiodes and a Mach-Zehnder delay line interferometer is successfully demonstrated in an optical phase-modulated link.