Dilute nitride materials and detectors for next generation optical communications

光通信支撑着现代生活的许多方面，最重要的是今天的经济。每个人都希望能够以几乎为零的成本在世界各地快速移动大量数据。此外，每个人都预计带宽和数据速率将继续同比增长。正如硅芯片技术的摩尔定律产生了重大的经济影响一样，对增加通信带宽的信心也推动了世界各地的经济增长。同样类似于摩尔定律，满足预期增长所需的研究努力是显著的，并随着每一代技术的发展而升级。这一博士项目将有助于开发用于光收发信机的下一代探测器。该项目将重点研究稀氮化物半导体材料在红外探测器中的开发和应用。特别是，将研究与GaAs匹配的生长的InGaAsN。IQE将为该项目提供增长专业知识和资源，并提供一条可扩展的商业开发和影响途径。为了降低成本和增加带宽，将开发新的单位增益和雪崩探测器。随着比特率的增加，雪崩探测器的增益-带宽积是非常重要的。当前的值，通常为200 GHz，将限制在高比特率接收器中可以利用的增益的大小，这可能成为提高比特率的障碍。该项目将寻求提高使用替代材料和结构变化可以实现的增益-带宽产品。

Optical communications underpin many aspects of modern life and most importantly today's economy. Everyone simply expects to be able to move large amounts of data around the world rapidly and for almost zero cost. Moreover, everyone expects bandwidths and data rates to continue to increase year on year. In the same way that Moore's law for silicon chip technology has had significant economic impact, confidence in increasing communication bandwidths has enabled and even driven economic growth around the world. Also analogous to Moore's law, the research effort required to meet the expected increase is significant and escalates with each technology generation. This PhD project will contribute to developing the next generation of detectors for optical transceivers. The project will focus on the development and application of dilute nitride semiconductor materials in infrared detectors. In particular InGaAsN, grown lattice matched to GaAs, will be studied. IQE will provide the growth expertise and resource for the project, as well as providing a scalable route to commercial exploitation and impact. Novel unity gain and avalanche detectors will be developed, with the aim of reducing cost and increasing bandwidths. The gain-bandwidth product for avalanche detectors is of great importance as bit rates increase. Current values, typically <200GHz, will limit the magnitude of gain which can be exploited in high bit rate receivers and this threatens to become a roadblock to increases in bitrates. The project will seek to raise the gain-bandwidth product achievable using alternative materials and structural changes.