High speed and high power polarization insensitive germanium photodetector with lumped structure

We propose and demonstrate a high speed and high power polarization insensitive germanium photodetector (Ge PD) with lumped structure based on related parallel Ge absorption regions. Two absorption regions are double sides illuminated to optimize the space charge density and the two dimensional (2D) grating coupler is adopted for both coupling and polarization independent operation. Being different from previous reported high power scheme with separate absorption areas, the proposed structure is specifically designed with doubled but related Ge absorption regions, forming the equivalent parallel resistor and thus the parasitic parameter can be engineered to ensure a simultaneous large bandwidth. The bandwidth is measured to be >35 GHz, while the maximum current density is measured to be 1.152 mA/mu m(3). The dark current and the responsivity of the proposed Ge PD are measured to be 1.82 mu A and 1.06 A/W. Modulated signals experimentally validate the high speed operation and doubled power handling capacity for the proposed scheme. Furthermore, the bit error rate results show the superior performance for the proposed Ge PD at high photocurrent. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America