High performance monolithically integrated SOA-UTC photoreceiver for 100Gbit/s applications

In this paper we present a high-speed photo-detector comprising a uni-traveling carrier photo-diode (UTC PD) monolithically integrated with a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) for 100Gbit/s applications. This new pre-amplified photoreceiver design operates at 1.55μm wavelength with the UTC PD exceeding 110GHz 3dB bandwidth at high input powers and a dark current of 1 nA. A 40% bandwidth improvement is achieved by employing new optimized transmission lines (TMLs) to equalize the intrinsic response of the detector. The high performance buried heterostructure SOA exhibits low polarization dependence loss (<1dB) low noise figure (~8dB) and 19dB gain allowing to achieve a responsivity of >50AIW. The bias dependence of the gain and the carrier recombination was analyzed using differential carrier lifetime measurements.