关键词: 单片集成/
阵列波导光栅/
单载流子探测器/
选区外延
English Abstract
Butt-joint design in a uni-traveling carrier photodiode array monolithic with an arrayed waveguide grating by the selective area growth technique
Ye Han1,Han Qin1,2,
Lü Qian-Qian1,
Pan Pan1,
An Jun-Ming1,3,
Wang Yu-Bing1,
Liu Rong-Rui1,
Hou Li-Li1
1.State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100083, China;
2.School of Electronic, Electrical and Communication Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
3.College of Materials Science and Opto-Electronic Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Fund Project:Project supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No.2015AA016902),the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (Grant No.2016YFB0402404),and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos.61635010,61674136,61435002).Received Date:30 March 2017
Accepted Date:07 May 2017
Published Online:05 August 2017
Abstract:Monolithic integration of an InP-based O-band 4-channel arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) to a uni-traveling carrier photodiode (UTC-PD) array is realized by the selective area growth (SAG) technique. The passive-active buttjoint design is introduced and experimentally proved to ensure both good compatibility between the PD fabrication process and the SAG technique, and high photodiode quantum efficiency under the complex butt-joint geometry. An extended coupling layer is adopted between the AWG output waveguides and the PD mesa. The extended coupling layer length, the regrowth boundary edge position and the AWG etching edge position relative to the heterogeneous butt-joint boundary, and the refractive indices of the PD collector and coupling layer are optically simulated and optimized by a finite-difference time-domain method.It is found that the extended coupling layer, compared with the un-extended situation, ensures a good matched optical field from AWG to PD and could reduce nearly 30% quantum efficiency loss when connecting seamlessly to the regrown InP AWG top cladding layer. A stable high efficiency around 80% is maintained within an extended layer length from 7.5 m to 15.0 m. The regrowth boundary edge into the coupling region will cause a drastic efficiency oscillation up to 20% period with the increase of distance. The efficiency drop is also attributed to the light scattering at the regrowth boundary edge, caused by the optical field mismatch, while the oscillation comes from the alternative light power concentration between the coupling layer and the core layer, for the light scattering is only obvious when the light power is well concentrated in the coupling layer. The AWG etching edge position deviation from the butt-joint boundary, however, exerts little influence on the PD quantum efficiency, which is believed not to bring obvious coupling loss during device fabrication.The higher UTC-PD collector refractive index is proved to be crucial for further better optical coupling from the coupling layer to the PD, with quantum efficiency rapidly increasing from around 0.1 to 0.8 when the index is increased from 3.20 to 3.42. By comparison, the efficiency is little affected by the coupling layer refractive index from 3.34 to 3.42.All things considered, we select a 10 m extended coupling layer, the refractive indices of both PD collector and the coupling layer to be 3.42, and align both the regrowth boundary edge and the AWG etching edge to the heterogeneous butt-joint boundary, and a PD quantum efficiency of 80% is expected.Owing to the extended coupling layer at the butt-joint, the SAG technique facilitates the PD fabrication process. The overgrown AWG top cladding layer ridge stretches out 4.67 m toward the PD, but not over the mesa yet, hence has little influence on the PD fabrication accuracy. The monolithic chip presents a uniform photodiode quantum efficiency of 76%, which accords well with theoretical value and confirms the butt-joint design. Central wavelengths for the four channels are 1347.0 nm, 1325.0 nm, 1308.0 nm, and 1286.5 nm, respectively. The low crosstalk level (below -22 dB) also indicates a good de-multiplexer performance.
Keywords: monolithic integration/
arrayed waveguide grating/
uni-traveling carrier photodiode/
selective area growth
