Linearity of a Silicon Photodiode at 30 MHz and Its Effect on Heterodyne Measurements

The effect of optical irradiance on the linearity of a Si photodiode was studied. These results are compared for light modulated at 30 MHz and at dc as the optical irradiance was varied over a 9 decade range. We discuss how these results affect the use of this detector as a heterodyne receiver. As the optical irradiance varied from 10-2 to 10+3 mW/cm2, while maintaining constant total power, the photocurrent was constant to about 1%, but as the power density increased further, the photocurrent increased about 13%. At the highest densities that we could achieve, about 6×107 mW/cm2 there was only slight evidence of the onset of saturation. These results are of importance in our work to use optical heterodyne detection to measure filter transmittances over a wide dynamic range. The results provide guidelines for achieving maximum accuracy when using this particular diode as an optical heterodyne receiver.