Fabrication of 40 Gb/s front-end optical receivers using spot-size converter integrated waveguide photodiodes

We fabricated 40 Gb/s front-end optical receivers using spot-size converter integrated waveguide photodiodes (SSC-WGPDs). The fabricated SSC-WGPD chips showed a high responsivity of approximately 0.8 A/W and a 3 dB bandwidth of approximately 40 GHz. A selective wet-etching method was first adopted to realize the required width and depth of a tapered waveguide. Two types of electrical pre-amplifier chips were used in our study. One has higher gain and the other has a broader bandwidth. The 3 dB bandwidths of the higher gain and broader bandwidth modules were about 32 and 42 GHz, respectively. Clear 40 Gb/s non-return-to-zero (NRZ) eye diagrams showed good system applicability of these modules.