Effects of the Parasitics on the Time Response of RCE-PDs

Resonant cavity enhanced photodetectors (RCE-PDs) are promising candidates for applications in high-speed optical communications and interconnections. However, because parasitics effects of these high-speed photodetectors can significantly degrade the performance of the photodetector, then they must be carefully considered. Here, an accurate model for the time response of the RCE-PDs that includes the effects of their parasitics is presented. The effects of an inductor that may be added in series with the load resistor are also studied and it is shown that the external inductor can improve the performance of the photodetector because it compensates some of the degradations resulting from capacitive parasitics. The effects of the parasitics have been investigated for different dimensions of the photodetectors, different values of both the load resistance and the added inductor and also for different multiplication gains for the case of RCE-avalanche photodetectors.