Integrated VCSOA and PIN with High Sensitivity

Abstract An integrated vertical cavity semiconductor optical amplifier (VCSOA) and PIN photodetector was proposed in attempting to raise the sensitivity in high speed fiber-optic communication systems. Two slightly different structures have been studied under this configuration. For the cascade and the resonance structure, our simulation results showed that their sensitivity could reach -33dBm and -36dBm at a bit rate of 10Gb/s, respectively. We also managed to fabricate the cascade structure and demonstrated a 7dBm improvement on sensitivity as compared to the conventional PIN photodetector.