08 December 2008
Optical component offers ‘world record’ performance
Researchers from Intel Corp are claiming to have achieved world record performance using its silicon based Avalanche photo detector (APD).
A team led by Intel researchers created the silicon based APD, a light sensor that detects light and amplifies weak signals as light is directed onto silicon. The APD device used silicon and cmos processing to achieve a ‘gain bandwidth product’ of 340GHz and, according to Intel, it is the best result ever measured for an APD performance metric.
Mario Paniccia PhD, Intel Fellow and director of the company’s Photonics Technology Lab, said: “This research is another example of how silicon can be used to create very high performance optical devices. In addition to optical communication, these silicon based APDs could also be applied to other areas such as sensing, imaging, quantum cryptography or biological applications.”
Author
Chris Shaw
Supporting Information
Websites
http://www.intel.com/
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