Surface-illuminated photon-trapping high-speed Ge-on-Si photodiodes with improved efficiency up to 1700 nm

Abstract

In this paper, high-speed surface-illuminated Ge-on-Si pin photodiodes with improved efficiency are demonstrated. With photon-trapping microhole features, the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of the Ge-on-Si pin diode is >80% at 1300 nm and 73% at 1550 nm with an intrinsic Ge layer of only 2 μm thickness, showing much improvement compared to one without microholes. More than threefold EQE improvement is also observed at longer wavelengths beyond 1550 nm. These results make the microhole-enabled Ge-on-Si photodiodes promising to cover both the existing C and L bands, as well as a new data transmission window (1620–1700 nm), which can be used to enhance the capacity of conventional standard single-mode fiber cables. These photodiodes have potential for many applications, such as inter-/intra-datacenters, passive optical networks, metro and long-haul dense wavelength division multiplexing systems, eye-safe lidar systems, and quantum communications. The CMOS and BiCMOS monolithic integration compatibility of this work is also attractive for Ge CMOS, near-infrared sensing, and communication integration.