Optical Communications

Chapter 4: Photodiode

Content
Working principles Optical characteristics Modulation characteristic PIN and APD Noise

PN Junction
Reverse biased: increases depletion region, prevents carriers from moving across the junction Forward biased: decreases depletion region, diffuses carriers across the junction

Working principles
Working principles

Working principles
Working principles

Optical characteristics
Optical characteristics

Optical characteristics
Optical characteristics

Optical characteristics
Optical characteristics

Modulation characteristics
Modulation characteristics
Shunt Resistance, RSH the slope of the I-V curve at V=0 Series Resistance, RS arises from the resistance of the contacts and the resistance of the undepleted silicon Junction Capacitance, CJ the boundaries of the depletion region act as the plates of a parallel plate capacitor

Modulation characteristics
Modulation characteristics

Modulation characteristics
tDRIFT, the charge collection time of the carriers in the depleted region of the photodiode. tDIFFUSED, the charge collection time of the carriers in the undepleted region of the photodiode. tRC, the RC time constant of the diode-circuit combination.
Response time

Modulation bandwidth

PIN
PIN photodiode

APD
APD photodiode

PIN vs APD

PIN vs APD
High reverse voltage (~10 to 100V), sometimes just below breakdown. M depends strongly on the reverse voltage. The excess noise factor increases with M. Therefore, the reverse voltage is often chosen such that the multiplication noise approximately equals the noise of the electronic amplifier The detection bandwidth can be very high, because operation with a smaller shunt resistor is acceptable. InGaAs APDs are significantly more expensive than Ge APD, but exhibit superior noise performance and a higher detection bandwidth.

Noise
Noise sources
Quantum (shot noise) Bulk dark current Surface dark current Thermal noise
2 2 < iQ >= Q = 2 qI p BM 2 F ( M ) 2 2 < iDB >= DB = 2 qI D BM 2 F ( M ) 2 2 < iDS >= DS = 2qI L B

4k BTB < i >= = RL

2 T 2 T

B: bandwidth M: APD gain F(M): exceed noise factor

Noise
Signal to Noise ratio

Conclusion
Photodiodes use reverse-bias PN junction to convert photons to electrons Due to the semiconductor material, the optical bandwidth of photodiode is limited Due to the working principles and structure of a photodiode, the modulation bandwidth is limited PIN photodiode is cheaper but has a lower gain APD photodiode has better gain but increases noise