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An 8 × 160 Gb s−1 all-silicon avalanche photodiode chip

Nature Photonics volume 18, pages 928–934 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

In response to growing demands on data traffic, silicon (Si) photonics has emerged as a promising technology for ultra-high-speed and low-cost optical interconnects. However, achieving high-performance photodetectors with Si photonics requires integrating narrower-bandgap materials, resulting in more complex fabrication processes, higher costs and yield issues. To address this challenge, we demonstrate an all-Si receiver (RX) based on a cost-efficient, eight-channel, double-microring-resonator, avalanche photodiode. It has an aggregate data rate of 1.28 Tb s−1. All channels show excellent uniformity in their device performance with a responsivity of 0.4 A W−1, an ultra-low dark current of 1 nA, a high bandwidth of 40 GHz at −8 V and a \(k\) value of 0.28. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of an all-Si RX supporting a record-high transmission data rate of 160 Gb s−1 per channel, along with an ultra-low electrical crosstalk of less than −50 dB. This all-Si optical RX can compete with the commercial heterojunction-based RXs and promises ~40% chip cost saving, thus paving the way to realizing >3.2 Tb s−1 interconnects for future optical networks.

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Fig. 1: Device design of an Si double-MRM APD.
Fig. 2: Simulations of Si double-MRM APDs.
Fig. 3: Spectrum and crosstalk of MRR APDs.
Fig. 4: d.c. characteristics of MRR APDs.
Fig. 5: RF response of MRR APDs.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Advanced Micro Foundry for fabrication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Large-Scale Integrated Photonics Lab, Milpitas, CA, USA

    Yiwei Peng, Yuan Yuan, Wayne V. Sorin, Stanley Cheung, Zhihong Huang, Chaerin Hong, Marco Fiorentino & Raymond G. Beausoleil

  2. University of Michigan, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Di Liang

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Contributions

Y.P. designed and conceived the devices. Y.P., Y.Y. and S.C. conceived and conducted the experiments. Y.P. and W.S. developed the model. Z.H., D.L., M.F. and R.B. managed the project and gave important technical advice. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuan Yuan.

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Nature Photonics thanks Lin Chang, Yunhong Ding and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary text and Figs. 1–14.

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Peng, Y., Yuan, Y., Sorin, W.V. et al. An 8 × 160 Gb s−1 all-silicon avalanche photodiode chip. Nat. Photon. 18, 928–934 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-024-01495-y

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