Calculation of the impulse response and phase noise of a high-current photodetector using the drift-diffusion equations.

We describe a procedure to calculate the impulse response and phase noise of high-current photodetectors using the drift-diffusion equations while avoiding computationally expensive Monte Carlo simulations. We apply this procedure to a modified uni-traveling-carrier (MUTC) photodetector. In our approach, we first use the full drift-diffusion equations to calculate the steady-state photodetector parameters. We then perturb the generation rate as a function of time to calculate the impulse response. We next calculate the fundamental shot noise limit and cut-off frequency of the device. We find the contributions of the electron, hole, and displacement currents. We calculate the phase noise of an MUTC photodetector. We find good agreement with experimental and Monte Carlo simulation results. We show that phase noise is minimized by having an impulse response with a tail that is as small as possible. Since, our approach is much faster computationally than Monte Carlo simulations, we are able to carry out a broad parameter study to optimize the device performance. We propose a new optimized structure with less phase noise and reduced nonlinearity.