Influence of carrier diffusion on the response of a resonant-cavity enhanced detector

Abstract

We have investigated the effects of carrier diffusion on the impulse response of a resonant-cavity enhanced photodetector using our analytic expression for a short-circuit current. Our theoretical results indicate that diffusion introduces a significant tail in the temporal response of photodetectors. We show that the influence of diffusion becomes significant as the absorption width decreases. A discrepancy in bandwidth as high as 35% between our results and previous theoretical predictions is observed.