A Novel Parellelly-fed Traveling Wave Photodetector with Integrated MlMI Power Splitter

High-power, high-speed photodetectors are the key components for analog fiber-optic links to provide large bandwidth, reduce RF insertion loss, and increase spurious free dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio [l]. The performance of analog fiber optic links is limited by the maximum linear photocurrent of the photodetector [2]. Conventional high-speed detectors have small absorption volume and therefore cannot achieve high saturation power. Velocity Matched Distributed Photodectors have shown excellent potential for high-speed high saturation current performance [34]. In these serially-fed VMDP's, the maximum linear photocurrent is often limited by the heat induced damage of the fmt detector of the chain [SI. We propose a solution to this problem through a parallely-fed distributed detection scheme with an integrated power splitter as shown in Fig. 1. In addition, we expect improved linearity of the device due to the fact that the maximum power seen by any single diode is reduced. Velocity