Module 2: Optical sources and Photodetectors:

Objectives: Photodetectors:
Optical sources: Physical principles of Photodiodes
Light Emitting diodes: Photo detector noise.
LED Structures Detector response time.
Light Source Materials
Quantum Efficiency and LED Power
Modulation. WDM Concepts: Overview of
WDM, Isolators and Circulators,
Laser Diodes: Fiber grating filters,
Modes and Threshold conditions Dielectric thin-film filters,
Rate equation. Diffraction Gratings.
External Quantum Efficiency. Resonant
Frequencies.
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 LED Structures

• To be useful in fiber transmission applications, an LED must have a high

radiance output, a fast emission response time, and a high quantum
efficiency.
• Its radiance (or brightness) is a measure, in watts, of the optical power
radiated into a unit solid angle per unit area of the emitting surface.
• High radiances are necessary to couple sufficiently high optical power
levels into a fiber.
• The emission response time is the time delay between the application
of a current pulse and the onset of optical emission.
• The quantum efficiency is related to the fraction of injected electron–
hole pairs that recombine radiatively.
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 • To achieve a high radiance and a high quantum efficiency, the LED
structure must provide a means of confining the charge carriers and
the stimulated optical emission to the active region of the pn junction
where radiative recombination takes place.
• Carrier confinement is used to achieve a high level of radiative
recombination in the active region of the device, which yields a high
quantum efficiency.
• Optical confinement is of importance for preventing absorption of the
emitted radiation by the material surrounding the pn junction.

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 double- heterostructure Light emitter

Fig-1. (a) Cross-sectional drawing (not to scale) of a typical GaAlAs double-heterostructure light
emitter. In this structure, x > y to provide for both carrier confinement and optical guiding;
(b) energy band diagram showing the active region, and the electron and hole barriers that confine
the charge carriers to the active layer;
(c) variations in the refractive index; the lower index of refraction of the material in regions 1 and 5
creates an optical barrier around the waveguide region.

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 • To achieve carrier and optical confinement, LED configurations such
as homojunctions and single and double heterojunctions have been
widely investigated.
• The most effective of these structures is the configuration shown in
Fig. This is referred to as a double-heterostructure (or heterojunction)
device because of the two different alloy layers on each side of the
active region.
• This configuration evolved from studies on laser diodes.
• By means of this sandwich structure of differently composed alloy
layers, both the carriers and the optical field are confined in the central
active layer.
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 • The bandgap differences of adjacent layers confine the charge carriers
(Fig-1. b),
• while the differences in the indices of refraction of adjoining layers
confine the optical field to the central active layer (Fig-1. c).
• This dual confinement leads to both high efficiency and high radiance.
• Other parameters influencing the device performance include optical
absorption in the active region (self-absorption), carrier recombination
at the heterostructure interfaces, doping concentration of the active
layer, injection carrier density, and active layer thickness.

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 The two basic LED configurations being used for
fiber optics are surface emitters (also called
Burrus or front emitters) and edge emitters.

• surface emitters

Fig. 2 Schematic (not to scale) of a high-radiance surface-emitting LED. The active region is limited
to a circular section having an area compatible with the fiber-core end face.
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 • In the surface emitter, the plane of the active light-emitting region is
oriented perpendicularly to the axis of the fiber, as shown in Fig.2.
• In this configuration, a well is etched through the substrate of the
device, into which a fiber is then cemented in order to accept the
emitted light.
• The circular active area in practical surface emitters is nominally 50
mm in diameter and up to 2.5 mm thick.
• The emission pattern is essentially isotropic with a 120° half-power
beam width.

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 • This isotropic pattern from such a surface emitter is called a
lambertian pattern.
• In this pattern, the source is equally bright when viewed from any
direction, but the power diminishes as cos q, where q is the angle
between the viewing direction and the normal to the surface (this is
because the projected area one sees decreases as cos q).
• Thus, the power is down to 50 percent of its peak when q = 60°, so
that the total half-power beam width is 120°.

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 Edge emitter

Fig.3 Schematic (not to scale) of an edge-emitting double-heterojunction LED. The output beam is lambertian in the
plane of the pn junction (q|| = 120°) and highly directional perpendicular to the pn junction (q^ ª 30°).
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 • The edge emitter depicted in Fig.3 consists of an active junction
region, which is the source of the incoherent light, and two guiding
layers.
• The guiding layers both have a refractive index lower than that of the
active region but higher than the index of the surrounding material.
• This structure forms a waveguide channel that directs the optical
radiation toward the fiber core.
• To match the typical fiber-core diameters (50–100 mm), the contact
stripes for the edge emitter are 50–70 mm wide.
• Lengths of the active regions usually range from 100 to 150 mm.
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 • The emission pattern of the edge emitter is more directional than that
of the surface emitter, as is illustrated in Fig.3.
• In the plane parallel to the junction, where there is no waveguide
effect, the emitted beam is lambertian (varying as cosθ) with a half-
power width of | θ | = 120°.
• In the plane perpendicular to the junction, the half-power beam θ has
been made as small as 25–35° by a proper choice of the waveguide
thickness.

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 Light Source Materials

• The semiconductor material that is used for the active layer of an

optical source must have a direct bandgap.
• In a direct-bandgap semiconductor, electrons and holes can recombine
directly across the bandgap without needing a third particle to
conserve momentum.
• Only in direct-bandgap material is the radiative recombination
sufficiently high to produce an adequate level of optical emission.
• Although none of the normal single-element semiconductors are
direct-gap materials, many binary compounds are.

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 • The most important of these compounds are made from III-V
materials.
• That is, the compounds consist of selections from a group III element
(e.g., Al, Ga, or In) and a group V element (e.g., P, As, or Sb).
• Various ternary and quaternary combinations of binary compounds of
these elements are also direct-gap materials and are suitable candidates
for optical sources.

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 • For operation in the 800-to-900-nm spectrum, the principal material
used is the ternary alloy Ga1–xAlxAs.
• The ratio x of aluminum arsenide to gallium arsenide determines the
bandgap of the alloy and, correspondingly, the wavelength of the peak
emitted radiation.
• This is illustrated in Fig-4 . The value of x for the active-area material
is usually chosen to give an emission wavelength of 800–850 nm.
• An example of the emission spectrum of a Ga1–xAlxAs LED with x =
0.08 is shown in Fig-5.

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 Fig-4 Bandgap energy and output wavelength as a function of aluminum mole fraction x
for AlxGa1–x As at room temperature.
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 Fig-5 Spectral emission pattern of a representative Ga1–xAlx As LED with x = 0.08. The width of the
spectral pattern at its half-power point is 36 nm.

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 • At longer wavelengths the quaternary alloy In1–xGaxAsyP1–y is one
of the primary material candidates.
• By varying the mole fractions x and y in the active area, LEDs with
peak output powers at any wavelength between 1.0 and 1.7 mm can be
constructed.
• For simplicity, the notations GaAlAs and InGaAsP are generally used
unless there is an explicit need to know the values of x and y.
• Other notations such as AlGaAs, (Al, Ga)As, (GaAl)As, GaInPAs, and
InxGa1–xAsyP1–y are also found in the literature.

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 • Using the fundamental quantum mechanical relationship between
energy E and frequency v,

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 Quantum Efficiency and LED Power

• An excess of electrons and holes in p and n-type material, respectively

is created in a semiconductor light source by carrier injection at the
device contacts.
• The excess densities of electrons n and holes p are equal, since the
injected carriers are formed and recombine in pairs in accordance with
the requirement for charge neutrality in the crystal.
• When carrier injection stops, the carrier density returns to the
equilibrium value.
• In general, the excess carrier density decays exponentially with time
according to the relation.
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 • where n0 is the initial injected excess electron density and the time
constant τ is the carrier lifetime.
• This lifetime is one of the most important operating parameters of an
electro-optic device.
• Its value can range from milliseconds to fractions of a nanosecond
depending on material composition and device defects.
• The excess carriers can recombine either radiatively or nonradiatively.
• In radiative recombination a photon of energy hv, which is approximately
equal to the bandgap energy, is emitted.
• Nonradiative recombination effects include optical absorption in the active
region.
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 • The total rate at which carriers are generated is the sum of the
externally supplied and the thermally generated rates.
• The externally supplied rate is given by J/qd, where J is the current
density in A/cm2 , q is the electron charge, and d is the thickness of
the recombination region.
• The thermal generation rate is given by n/τ.
• Hence, the rate equation for carrier recombination in an LED can be
written as

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 • The equilibrium condition is found by setting above Eq. equal to zero,
yielding.

• This relationship gives the steady-state electron density in the active

region when a constant current is flowing through it.

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 • The internal quantum efficiency in the active region is the fraction of
the electron–hole pairs that recombine radiatively.
• If the radiative recombination rate is and the nonradiative
recombination rate is , then the internal quantum efficiency is the
ratio of the radiative recombination rate to the total recombination
rate:

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 • For exponential decay of excess carriers, the radiative recombination
lifetime is = n/ and the nonradiative recombination lifetime is = n/.
• Thus the internal quantum efficiency can be expressed as

• where the bulk recombination lifetime is

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 • If the current injected into the LED is I, then the total number of
recombinations per second is

• = I/q.
• Noting that is the total number of photons generated per second and
that each photon has an energy hv, then the optical power generated
internally to the LED is.

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 Example: A double-heterojunction InGaAsP LED emitting at a peak wavelength of 1310nm has radiative
and nonradiative recombination times of 30 and 100ns, respectively. The drive current is 40mA. Find (a)
the bulk recombination time; (b) the internal quantum efficiency; and (c) the internal power level.

Solution: (a) From Eq. the bulk recombination lifetime is

(b) Using Eq. of the internal quantum efficiency

(c) internal power level

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 External quantum efficiency .

• Not all internally generated photons will exit the device.

• To find the emitted power, one needs to consider the external quantum
efficiency .
• This is defined as the ratio of the photons emitted from the LED to the
number of internally generated photons.
• To find the external quantum efficiency, we need to take into account
reflection effects at the surface of the LED.
• As shown in Figure

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 Only light falling within a cone defined by the
critical angle φc will be emitted from an
optical source.

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 • The external quantum efficiency can then be calculated from the
expression.

• where T(Φ) is the Fresnel transmission coefficient or Fresnel

transmissivity.
• This factor depends on the incidence angle Φ, but, for simplicity, we
can use the expression for normal incidence, which is

• Assuming the outside medium is air and letting n1 = n, we have T(0) =

4n/(n + 1)2 .
• The external quantum efficiency is then approximately given by

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 • From this, it follows that the optical power emitted from the LED is

• Assume a typical value of n = 3.5 for the refractive index of an LED

material. What percent of the internally generated optical power is
emitted into an air medium?

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 Modulation of an LED

• The response time or frequency response of an optical source dictates

how fast an electrical input drive signal can vary the light output level.
• The following three factors largely determine the response time:
1. the doping level in the active region,
2. the injected carrier lifetime in the recombination region, and
3. the parasitic capacitance of the LED.
• If the drive current is modulated at a frequency ω, the optical output
power of the device will vary as

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 • where P0 is the power emitted at zero modulation frequency.
• The parasitic capacitance can cause a delay of the carrier injection into
the active junction, and, consequently, could delay the optical output.
• This delay is negligible if a small, constant forward bias is applied to
the diode.
• Under this condition, the modulation response is limited only by the
carrier recombination time.

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 Example-2 A particular LED has a 5-ns injected carrier lifetime. When no
modulation current is applied to the device, the optical output power is
0.250mW for a specified dc bias. Assuming parasitic capacitances are
negligible, what are the optical outputs at modulation frequencies of (a)
10 MHz and (b) 100 MHz?
Solution: (a) the optical output at 10 MHz is

(b) Similarly, the optical output at 100 MHz is

• Thus the output of this particular device decreases at higher modulation

rates.
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 Laser Diodes

• Lasers come in many forms with dimensions ranging from the size of a
grain of salt to one that will occupy an entire room.
• The lasing medium can be a gas, a liquid, an insulating crystal (solid
state), or a semiconductor.
• For optical fiber systems the laser sources used almost exclusively are
semiconductor laser diodes.
• They are similar to other lasers, such as the conventional solid-state and
gas lasers, in that the emitted radiation has spatial and temporal
coherence;
• that is, the output radiation is highly monochromatic and the light beam
is very directional.
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 • Laser action is the result of three key processes: photon absorption,
spontaneous emission, and stimulated emission.
• These three processes are represented by the simple two-energy-level
diagrams in Figure, where E1 is the ground-state energy and E2 is the
excited-state energy.
• According to Planck’s law, a transition between these two states involves
the absorption or emission of a photon of energy = E2 – E1.
• Normally, the system is in the ground state.
• When a photon of energy impinges on the system, an electron in state
E1 can absorb the photon energy and be excited to state E2, as shown in
Fig-1.a.
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 The three key transition processes involved in laser action. The open
circle represents the initial state of the electron and the heavy dot
represents the final state; incident photons are shown on the left of each
diagram and emitted photons are shown on the right.

Figure-1 Three transition processes involved in laser action

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 • Since this is an unstable state, the electron will shortly return to the
ground state, thereby emitting a photon of energy .
• This occurs without any external stimulation and is called spontaneous
emission.
• These emissions are isotropic and of random phase, and thus appear as
a narrowband Gaussian output.
• The electron can also be induced to make a downward transition from
the excited level to the ground state level by an external stimulation.

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 • As shown in Fig.c, if a photon of energy impinges the system while
the electron is still in its excited state, the electron is immediately
stimulated to drop to the ground state and give off a photon of energy .
• This emitted photon is in phase with the incident photon, and the
resultant emission is known as stimulated emission.

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 • In thermal equilibrium the density of excited electrons is very small.
Most photons incident on the system will therefore be absorbed, so
that stimulated emission is essentially negligible.
• Stimulated emission will exceed absorption only if the population of
the excited states is greater than that of the ground state.
• This condition is known as population inversion. Since this is not an
equilibrium condition, population inversion is achieved by various
“pumping” techniques.
• In a semiconductor laser, population inversion is accomplished by
injecting electrons into the material at the device contacts or through
an optical absorption method by means of externally injected photons.
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 Laser Diode Modes and Threshold Conditions

• For optical fiber communication systems requiring bandwidths greater

than approximately 200 MHz, the semiconductor injection laser diode
is preferred over the LED.
• Laser diodes typically have response times less than 1ns, can have
spectral widths of 2nm or less, and are capable of coupling from tens
to hundreds of milliwatts of useful luminescent power into optical
fibers with small cores and small mode field diameters.
• Virtually all laser diodes in use are multilayered heterojunction
devices.

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 • The construction of laser diodes is more complicated, mainly because
of the additional requirement of current confinement in a small lasing
cavity.
• Stimulated emission in semiconductor lasers arises from optical
transitions between distributions of energy states in the valence and
conduction bands.
• This differs from gas and solid-state lasers, in which radiative
transitions occur between discrete isolated atomic or molecular levels.
• The radiation in one type of laser diode configuration is generated
within a Fabry-Perot resonator cavity, shown in Figure-2.
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Fabry-Perot resonator cavity for a laser diode. The cleaved crystal ends function as partially reflecting
mirrors. The unused end (the rear facet) can be coated with a dielectric reflector to reduce optical loss in the
cavity. Note that the light beam emerging from the laser forms a vertical ellipse, even though the lasing spot
at the active-area facet is a horizontal ellipse.

Figure-2 Fabry-Perot resonator laser configuration.

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 • Here the cavity is approximately 250–500 mm long, 5–15 mm wide,
and 0.1–0.2 mm thick.
• These dimensions commonly are referred to as the longitudinal,
lateral, and transverse dimensions of the cavity, respectively.
• As illustrated in Figur-3, two flat, partially reflecting mirrors are
directed toward each other to enclose the Fabry-Perot resonator cavity.
• The mirror facets are constructed by making two parallel clefts along
natural cleavage planes of the semiconductor crystal. The purpose of
the mirrors is to establish a strong optical feedback in the longitudinal
direction.
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 Figure-3 Two parallel light-reflecting mirrored surfaces define a Fabry-Perot
resonator cavity.
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 • This feedback mechanism converts the device into an oscillator (and hence
a light emitter) with a gain mechanism that compensates for optical losses
in the cavity at certain resonant optical frequencies.
• The sides of the cavity are simply formed by roughing the edges of the
device to reduce unwanted emissions in the lateral directions.
• As the light reflects back and forth within the Fabry-Perot cavity, the
electric fields of the light interfere on successive round trips.
• Those wavelengths that are integer multiples of the cavity length interfere
constructively so that their amplitudes add when they exit the device
through the righthand facet.
• All other wavelengths interfere destructively and thus cancel themselves
out.
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 • The optical frequencies at which constructive interference occurs are
the resonant frequencies of the cavity.
• Consequently, spontaneously emitted photons that have wavelengths
at these resonant frequencies reinforce themselves after multiple trips
through the cavity so that their optical field becomes very strong.
• The resonant wavelengths are called the longitudinal modes of the
cavity because they resonate along the length of the cavity.

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 Distributed-feedback (DFB) laser

• A typical DFB laser configuration is shown in Figure-4.

• The fabrication of this device is similar to the Fabry-Perot types,
except that the lasing action is obtained from Bragg reflectors
(gratings) or periodic variations of the refractive index (called
distributed feedback corrugations), which are incorporated into the
multilayer structure along the length of the diode.
• In general, the full optical output is needed only from the front facet of
the laser—that is, the one to be aligned with an optical fiber.

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 Figure-4 Structure of a distributed-feedback (DFB) laser diode

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 Laser Diode Rate Equations

• The relationship between optical output power and the diode drive
current can be determined by examining the rate equations that govern
the interaction of photons and electrons in the active region.
• As noted earlier, the total carrier population is determined by carrier
injection, spontaneous recombination, and stimulated emission.
• For a pn junction with a carrier-confinement region of depth d, the rate
equations are given by
(1)

= stimulated emission + spontaneous emission + photon loss

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 • which governs the number of photons , and

(2)

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 • Equations (1) and (2) may be balanced by considering all the factors
that affect the number of carriers in the laser cavity.
• The first term in Eq. (1) is a source of photons resulting from
stimulated emission.
• The second term, describing the number of photons produced by
spontaneous emission, is relatively small compared with the first term.
• The third term in Eq. (1) indicates the decay in the number of photons
caused by loss mechanisms in the lasing cavity.

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 • In Eq. (2), the first term represents the increase in the electron
concentration in the conduction band as current flows into the device.
• The second and third terms give the number of electrons lost from the
conduction band owing to spontaneous and stimulated transitions,
respectively.
• Solving these two equations for a steady-state condition will yield an
expression for the output power.
• The steady state is characterized by the left-hand sides of Eqs (1) and (2)
being equal to zero.
• First, from Eq. (1), assuming Rsp is negligible and noting that dΦ/dt
must be positive when Φ is small, we have
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 (3)

This shows that n must exceed a threshold value nth in order for Φ to increase.
Using Eq. (2), this threshold value can be expressed in terms of the threshold current
needed to maintain an inversion level n = in the steady state when the number of photons
Φ = 0.
(4)

This expression defines the current required to sustain an excess electron density in the
laser when spontaneous emission is the only decay mechanism
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 • Next, consider the photon and electron rate equations in the steady-
state condition at the lasing threshold. Respectively, Eqs (1) and (2)
become.
(5)
• And
(6)
• where Φs is the steady-state photon density. Adding Eqs (5) and (6),
using Eq. (4) for the term /, and solving for Φs yields the number of
photons per unit volume:
(7)
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 External Quantum Efficiency

• The external differential quantum efficiency is defined as the number of

photons emitted per radiative electron–hole pair recombination above
threshold.
• Under the assumption that above threshold the gain coefficient remains fixed
at , is given by

(8)

• Here, is the internal quantum efficiency.

• Experimentally, is calculated from the straight-line portion of the curve for
the emitted optical power P versus drive current I, which gives
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 (9)

where Eg is the bandgap energy in electron volts, dP is the incremental change in

the emitted optical power in milliwatts for an incremental change dI in the drive
current (in milliamperes), and λ is the emission wavelength in micrometers.
For standard semiconductor lasers, external differential quantum efficiencies of 15–20
percent per facet are typical.
High-quality devices have differential quantum efficiencies of 30–40 percent.

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 Resonant Frequencies

• We have
(1)

(2)
• This states that the cavity resonates when an integer number m of half-
wavelengths spans the region between the mirrors.
• Since in all lasers the gain is a function of frequency (or wavelength), there
will be a range of frequencies (or wavelengths) for which Eq. (2) holds. Each
of these frequencies corresponds to a mode of oscillation of the laser.
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 • The relationship between gain and frequency can be assumed to have
the Gaussian form
(3)

• To find the frequency spacing, consider two successive modes of

frequencies and represented by the integers m – 1 and m. From Eq.
(2), we have
(4)

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 And
(5)

Subtracting these two equations yields

(6)

from which we have the frequency spacing

(7)

(8)

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 • Thus, given Eqs. (3) and (8), the output spectrum of a multimode laser
follows the typical gain-versus-frequency plot given in Fig. 5,
• where the exact number of modes, their heights, and their spacing's
depend on the laser construction.

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 •.

Figure-5 Typical spectrum from a Fabry-Perot GaAlAs/GaAs laser diode .

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 Physical Principles of Photodiodes

The pin Photodetector:

• The most common semiconductor photodetector is the pin
photodiode, shown schematically in Fig.1.
• The device structure consists of p and n regions separated by a very
lightly n-doped intrinsic (i) region.
• In normal operation a sufficiently large reverse-bias voltage is applied
across the device so that the intrinsic region is fully depleted of
carriers.
• That is, the intrinsic n and p carrier concentrations are negligibly
small in comparison with the impurity concentration in this region.
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 Fig.1 Representation of a pin photodiode circuit with an applied reverse
bias. An incident optical power level decays exponentially inside the
device.
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 Fig. 2 Simple energy-band diagram for a pin photodiode. Photons with energies greater than or equal
to the bandgap energy Eg can generate free electron–hole pairs that act as photocurrent carriers.
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 • As a photon flux Φ penetrates into a semiconductor, it will be
absorbed as it progresses through the material.
• Suppose Pin is the optical power level falling on the photodetector at x
= 0 and P(x) is the power level at a distance x into the material.
• Then the incremental change dP(x) in the optical power level as this
photon flux passes through an incremental distance dx in the
semiconductor is given by dP(x) = – (λ) P(x) dx, where (λ) is the
photon absorption coefficient at a wavelength λ.
• Integrating this relationship gives the power level at a distance x into
the material as (1)
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 • When an incident photon has an energy greater than or equal to the bandgap
energy of the semiconductor material, the photon can give up its energy and
excite an electron from the valence band to the conduction band.
• This absorption process generates mobile electron–hole pairs, as Fig.2 shows.
• These electrons and holes are known as photocarriers, since they are photon-
generated charge carriers that are available to produce a current flow when a bias
voltage is applied across the device.
• The number of charge carriers is controlled by the concentration level of
impurity elements that are intentionally added to the material.
• The photodetector is normally designed so that these carriers are generated
mainly in the depletion region (the depleted intrinsic region) where most of the
incident light is absorbed.
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 • The high electric field present in the depletion region causes the
carriers to separate and be collected across the reverse-biased junction.
• This gives rise to a current flow in an external circuit, with one
electron flowing for every carrier pair generated.
• This current flow is known as the photocurrent.
• As the charge carriers flow through the material, some electron–hole
pairs will recombine and hence disappear.
• On the average, the charge carriers move a distance Ln or Lp for
electrons and holes, respectively.
• This distance is known as the diffusion length.
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 • The time it takes for an electron or hole to recombine is known as the
carrier lifetime and is represented by τn and τp, respectively.
• The lifetimes and the diffusion lengths are related by the expressions

• where Dn and Dp are the electron and hole diffusion coefficients (or
constants), respectively, which are expressed in units of centimeters
squared per second.
• The upper wavelength cutoff λc is determined by the bandgap energy
Eg of the material.

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 • If Eg is expressed in units of electron volts (eV), then λc is given in units of
micrometers (mm) by
(2)

Ex-1: A photodiode is constructed of GaAs, which has a bandgap energy of

1.43 eV at 300 K. What is the cutoff wavelength of this device?
Solution: From Eq. (2), the long-wavelength cutoff is

This GaAs photodiode will not operate for photons of wavelength greater
than 869 nm.
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 • The cutoff wavelength is about 1.06µm for Si and 1.6µm for Ge.
• For longer wavelengths, the photon energy is not sufficient to excite
an electron from the valence to the conduction band.
• At the lower-wavelength end, the photo response cuts off as a result
of the very large values of as at the shorter wavelengths.
• In this case, the photons are absorbed very close to the
photodetector surface, where the recombination time of the
generated electron–hole pairs is very short.
• The generated carriers thus recombine before they can be collected
by the photodetector circuitry.
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 Avalanche photodiodes
• Avalanche photodiodes (APDs) internally multiply the primary signal
photocurrent before it enters the input circuitry of the following
amplifier.
• This increases receiver sensitivity, since the photocurrent is multiplied
before encountering the thermal noise associated with the receiver
circuit.
• In order for carrier multiplication to take place, the photogenerated
carriers must traverse a region where a very high electric field is
present.
• In this high-field region, a photogenerated electron or hole can gain
enough energy so that it ionizes bound electrons in the valence band
upon colliding with them.
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 • This carrier multiplication mechanism is known as impact ionization.
The newly created carriers are also accelerated by the high electric
field, thus gaining enough energy to cause further impact ionization.
• This phenomenon is the avalanche effect.
• A commonly used structure for achieving carrier multiplication with
very little excess noise is the reach-through construction shown in Fig.

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 • The reach-through avalanche photodiode (RAPD) is composed of a high-
resistivity p-type material deposited as an epitaxial layer on a p+
(heavily doped p-type) substrate.
• A p-type diffusion or ion implant is then made in the high-resistivity
material, followed by the construction of an n+ (heavily doped n-type)
layer.
• For silicon, the dopants used to form these layers are normally boron and
phosphorus, respectively.
• This configuration is referred to as p+πpn+ reach-through structure.
• The π layer is basically an intrinsic material that inadvertently has some
p doping because of imperfect purification.
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 • The term “reach-through” arises from the photodiode operation.
• When a low reverse-bias voltage is applied, most of the potential drop
is across the pn+ junction.
• The depletion layer widens with increasing bias until a certain voltage
is reached at which the peak electric field at the pn+ junction is about
5–10 percent below that needed to cause avalanche breakdown.
• At this point, the depletion layer just “reaches through” to the nearly
intrinsic p region.

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 Avalanche Photodiodes

Fig.3 Reach-through avalanche photodiode structure and the electric fields in the
depletion and
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 • In normal usage, the RAPD is operated in the fully depleted mode.
• Light enters the device through the p+ region and is absorbed in the
p material, which acts as the collection region for the photogenerated
carriers.
• Upon being absorbed, the photon gives up its energy, thereby
creating electron–hole pairs, which are then separated by the electric
field in the p region.
• The photogenerated electrons drift through the p region in the pn+
junction, where a high electric field exists.
• It is in this high-field region that carrier multiplication takes place.
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 • The multiplication M for all carriers generated in the photodiode is
defined by

• where IM is the average value of the total multiplied output current

and Ip is the primary unmultiplied photocurrent

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Department of Electronics & Communication
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