Integrated VCSOA and PIN with high sensitivity

An integrated vertical cavity semiconductor optical amplifier (VCSOA) and PIN photodetector was proposed in attempting to raise the sensitivity in high speed fiber-optic communication systems. Two slightly different structures have been studied under this configuration. For the cascade and the resonance structure, our simulation results showed that their sensitivity could reach -33dBm and -36dBm at a bit rate of 10Gb/s, respectively. We also managed to fabricate the cascade structure and demonstrated a 7dBm improvement on sensitivity as compared to the conventional PIN photodetector.