Cavity-enhanced resonant tunneling photodetector at telecommunication wavelengths

Abstract

An AlGaAs/GaAs double barrier resonant tunneling diode (RTD) with a nearby lattice-matched GaInNAs absorption layer was integrated into an optical cavity consisting of five and seven GaAs/AlAs layers to demonstrate cavity enhanced photodetection at the telecommunication wavelength 1.3 μm. The samples were grown by molecular beam epitaxy and RTD-mesas with ring-shaped contacts were fabricated. Electrical and optical properties were investigated at room temperature. The detector shows maximum photocurrent for the optical resonance at a wavelength of 1.29 μm. At resonance a high sensitivity of 3.1× 10 4 A/W and a response up to several pA per photon at room temperature were found.