We increased the absorptance of light by silicon to approximately 90% from the near ultraviolet (0.25 μm) to the near infrared (2.5 μm) by surface microstructuring using laser-chemical etching. The remarkable absorptance most likely comes from a high density of impurities and structural defects in the silicon lattice, enhanced by surface texturing. Microstructured avalanche photodiodes show significant enhancement of below-band-gap photocurrent generation at 1.06 and 1.31 μm, indicating promise for use in infrared photodetectors.

We present an efficient MOS-capacitor based silicon modulator. In an MZI configuration, a 9dB extinction ratio at 28 Gbps is achieved from the 1V output of a low-power CMOS inverter driver IC.

The detection of light emitted in fast scintillating fibers and Cerenkov radiators used for fiber calorimetry and tracking applications in high energy colliders, requires fast detector arrays with high sensitivity to short wavelength photons. Photomultiplier tubes, the traditional imaging detectors for short wavelength optical radiation, have limited spatial resolution and require expensive anti-magnetic shielding. We report on short wavelength sensitivity improvement and detection efficiency performance for a novel p-n junction planar structure silicon avalanche photodiode (APD) array, operated in Geiger mode. The APD array provides a high sensitivity detector for applications requiring the detection of light spatial distributions with single photon sensitivity.

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