High-speed resonant-tunneling photodetectors with low-switching energy

By taking advantage of the negative differential resistance characteristics of a resonant tunneling heterostructure, we have developed a novel photodetector which exhibits responsivities and gain-bandwidth efficiency products in excess of 10 A/W and 10 GHz/spl middot/A/W, respectively. Low switching energy (30 fJ) and bit-error rates of less than 10/sup -9/ at data rates at 2 Gb/s have been achieved with this optically-switched resonant-tunneling diode.