Design and fabrication of monolithic distributed traveling-wave photodetectors integrated with polymer optical waveguides

We have designed and fabricated monolithic distributed balanced traveling-wave metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors (MSM PDs) distributed along single-mode polymer optical waveguides. We demonstrate that monolithically integrated polymer optical waveguides on a semiconductor can provide efficient optical interconnects in an optoelectronic circuit. A responsivity of 0.44 A/W and a 3-dB bandwidth of 10 GHz were obtained in a PD array with five MSM PDs. A high photocurrent of 7.3 mA was measured in an array having eight MSM PDs. Impulse response measurements were performed and the results were compared with frequency domain results.