A high-speed monolithically-integrated photoreceiver for long-wavelength communication systems

For future long-haul optical fiber telecommunication systems, the development of monolithically integrated, high-speed $(>10$Gb/s) long wavelength photoreceivers is of considerable interest due to the potential advantages in size, reliability, and performance in comparison to those for hybrid receivers, especially at very high bit rates. This thesis details the design, fabrication, and characterization of monolithically integrated photoreceivers suitable for high bit rate, long wavelength optical fiber telecommunication systems based on lattice matched InAlAs/InGaAs/InP high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) and InAlAs/InGaAlAs/InP metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors (MSM-PDs). Extensive electronic and optoelectronic measurements of discrete devices are presented, and details of the fabrication processes developed are discussed. The device models used in the circuit design of the photoreceiver are discussed in detail. The performance of the fabricated photoreceiver circuits is reported and compared to the results of circuit simulations.The photoreceiver circuit designed and fabricated is based on a transimpedance amplifier topology with an active feedback resistor implemented using a common-gate HEMT. The HEMTs used in the photoreceiver are 0.2 $\mu$m gate length devices with transit frequency $\rm (f\sb{t})$ of 115 GHz and maximum frequency of oscillation $\rm (f\sb{\max})$ in excess of 150 GHz. The photoreceivers exhibited a 3 dB optoelectronic bandwidth of up to 18.5 GHz. From noise power spectral density measurements, sensitivities for a bit error rate of $1 \times 10\sp{-9}$ of $-18.2$ dBm and $-12.3$ dBm are projected for 10 Gb/s and 20 Gb/s digital data streams, respectively.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio