40-Gbit/s OEIC on GaAs substrate through metamorphic buffer technology

An optoelectronic integrated circuit operating in the 1.55-μm wavelength range was realized on GaAs substrate through metamorphic technology. High indium content layers, metamorphically grown on a GaAs substrate, were used to fabricate the optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) with -3 dB bandwidth of 40 GHz and 210 V/W of calculated responsivity. The analog OEIC photoreceiver consists of a 12-μm, top-illuminated p-i-n photodiode, and a traveling wave amplifier (TWA). This receiver shows 6 GHz wider bandwidth than a hybrid photoreceiver, which was built using comparable, but stand-alone metamorphic p-i-n diode and TWA. With the addition of a buffer amplifier, the OEIC shows 7 dB more gain than the hybrid counterpart. To our knowledge, this is the first 40 Gbit/s OEIC achieved on a GaAs substrate operating at 1.55 μm.