1.3μm-Band Si photodetectors with optical gains fabricated by dressed photon assisted annealing Available to Purchase

We fabricated a novel photodetector by subjecting a Si crystal having a p–n homojunction to phonon-assisted annealing. The photosensitivity of this device for incident light having a wavelength of 1.16 μm or greater was about three-times higher than that of a reference Si-PIN photodiode. The photosensitivity for incident light with a wavelength of around 1.32 μm was increased by applying a forward current. When the forward current density was 10 A/cm², the device showed photosensitivities of 3.1 A/W at a wavelength of 1.14 μm and 0.10 A/W at 1.32 μm. The photosensitivity at 1.32 μm is at least 4000-times higher than the zero-bias photosensitivity. This remarkable increase was due to the manifestation of optical amplification cause by the forward current injection. For a forward current density of 9 A/cm², the small-signal gain coefficient of the optical amplification was 2.2 × 10⁻², and the saturation power was 7.1 × 10² mW.