High-performance germanium (Ge) waveguide photodetectors are designed and fabricated utilizing the inductive-gain-peaking technique. With the appropriate integrated inductors, the 3-dB bandwidth of photodetectors is significantly improved owing to the inductive-gain-peaking effect without any compromises to the dark current and optical responsivity. Measured 3-dB bandwidth up to 75 GHz is realized and clear open eye diagrams at 64 Gbps are observed. In this work, the relationship between the frequency response and large signal transmission characteristics on the integrated inductors of Ge waveguide photodetectors is investigated, which indicates the high-speed performance of photodetectors using the inductive-gain-peaking technique.High-performance germanium (Ge) waveguide photodetectors are designed and fabricated utilizing the inductive-gain-peaking technique. With the appropriate integrated inductors, the 3-dB bandwidth of photodetectors is significantly improved owing to the inductive-gain-peaking effect without any compromises to the dark current and optical responsivity. Measured 3-dB bandwidth up to 75 GHz is realized and clear open eye diagrams at 64 Gbps are observed. In this work, the relationship between the frequency response and large signal transmission characteristics on the integrated inductors of Ge waveguide photodetectors is investigated, which indicates the high-speed performance of photodetectors using the inductive-gain-peaking technique.

To optimize the dark current characteristic and detection efficiency of the 1550 nm weak light signal at room temperature, this work proposes a Ge-on-Si avalanche photodiode (APD) in Geiger mode, which could operate at 300 K. This lateral separate absorption charge multiplication APD shows a low breakdown voltage (V_br) in Geiger mode of -7.42V and low dark current of 0.096 nA at unity gain voltage (V_Gain=1 = -7.03 V). Combined with an RF amplifier module and counter, the detection system demonstrates a low dark count rate (DCR) of 1.1×106counts per second and high detection efficiency η of 7.8% for 1550 nm weak coherent pulse detection at 300 K. The APD reported in this work weakens the dependence of the weak optical signal recognition on the low environment temperature and makes single-chip integration of the single-photon level detection system possible.

To overcome the capacity crunch of optical communications based on the traditional single-mode fiber (SMF), different modes in a few-mode fiber (FMF) can be employed for mode division multiplexing (MDM). MDM can also be extended to photonic integration for obtaining improved density and efficiency, as well as interconnection capacity. Therefore, MDM becomes the most promising method for maintaining the trend of “Moore’s law” in photonic integration and optical fiber transmission. In this tutorial, we provide a review of MDM works and cutting-edge progresses from photonic integration to optical fiber transmission, including our recent works of MDM low-noise amplification, FMF fiber design, MDM Si photonic devices, and so on. Research and application challenges of MDM for optical communications regarding long-haul transmission and short reach interconnection are discussed as well. The content is expected to be of important value for both academic researchers and industrial engineers during the development of next-generation optical communication systems, from photonic chips to fiber links.