Rigorous analysis of traveling wave photodetectors under high-power illumination

An efficient hybrid method for the rigorous analysis of traveling-wave photodetectors (TWPDs) is presented. The method consists of a combination of the 2D drift-diffusion based semiconductor simulation in conjunction with a full-wave EM analysis of the overall structure. While the 2D simulation determines the conductivity profile of the semiconductor layers under illuminations of different optical power levels, the 3D simulation characterizes the corresponding RF performance of the TWPD. Comparison with available experimental data has shown excellent agreement.