PHOTO DETECTORS

Photo-detectors
• Convert light energy (photons) back into electrical signals in
communication
• Broad range of devices with varying range of light absorption
• Speed, efficiency and cost vary widely from device to device
 Photo Detectors
• Optical receivers convert optical signal (light) to
electrical signal (current/voltage)
• Hence referred ‘O/E Converter’
• Photodetector is the fundamental element of optical
receiver, followed by amplifiers and signal
conditioning circuitry
• There are several photodetector types:
• Photodiodes, Phototransistors, Photon multipliers, Photo-
resistors etc.
Requirements
• Compatible physical dimensions (small size)
• High responsivity at the desired wavelength and low
responsivity elsewhere  wavelength selectivity
• Low noise and high gain
• Fast response time  high bandwidth
• Insensitive to temperature variations
• Long operating life and low cost
 Photodiodes
• Photodiodes meet most the requirements, hence
widely used as photo detectors.
• Positive-Intrinsic-Negative (pin) photodiode
• No internal gain, robust detector
• Avalanche Photo Diode (APD)
• Advanced version with internal gain M due to self
multiplication process
• Photodiodes are sufficiently reverse biased during
normal operation  no current flow without
illumination, the intrinsic region is fully depleted of
carriers
pin Photodetector

The high electric field present in the depletion region causes photo-generated carriers to
separate and be collected across the reverse –biased junction. This give rise to a current
flow in an external circuit, known as photocurrent.
Incident photons trigger a photocurrent Ip in the external circuitry by pumping energy
Photocurrent  Incident Optical Power
PIN Photodiode

 It is a junction diode in which an undoped intrinsic ( i ) region is

inserted between relatively thin p region and relatively thick n
region.
 Diode is reverse biased so that the entire i- region is depleted
and has a strong electric field.
 Light absorbed in intrinsic region produce free electron hole
pairs, provided that photon energy is high enough.
 These carriers which are responsible for photocurrent are swept
across the region with high velocity and are collected across the
reverse –biased junction.
 This gives rise to a current flow in the external circuit called the
photocurrent.
Energy-Band diagram for a pin photodiode
 Quantum Efficiency
• The quantum efficiency η is the number of the
electron–hole carrier pairs generated per incident–
absorbed photon of energy hν and is given by

Ip is the photocurrent generated by a steady-state

optical power Pin incident on the photodetector.
Photocurrent
• Optical power absorbed,P (x )in the depletion region can be written in terms of
incident optical power, P :
0

 s (  ) x
P( x)  P0 (1  e )
• Absorption coefficient s ( ) strongly depends on wavelength. The upper
wavelength cutoff for any semiconductor can be determined by its energy gap as
follows:
1.24
c ( m) 
E g (eV)
• Cut off wavelength for Si is about 1.06 µm and for Ge it is 1.6 µm.
• For longer wavelengths the photon energy is not sufficient to
excite an electron from the valence band to the conduction band.

• Taking entrance face reflectivity into consideration, the absorbed power in the
width of depletion region, w, becomes:

(1  R f ) P(w)  P0 (1  e  s ( ) w )(1  R f )
Responsivity
• The primary photocurrent resulting from absorption is:

q  s (  ) w
Ip  P0 (1  e )(1  R f )
h

• Responsivity:

IP q
  [A/W]
P0 h
Materials of construction
• The material used to make a photodiode is critical to defining its
properties, because only photons with sufficient energy to excite
electrons across the material's bandgap will produce significant
photocurrents.
• Materials commonly used to produce photodiodes include:

Wavelength range (nm)

Material
(for good sensitivity)
Silicon 190–1100
Germanium 400–1700
Indium gallium
800–2600
arsenide
InGaAsP <1000-3500
Responsivity vs. wavelength