A plasmonic optical antenna enhanced avalanche photodetector with a high gain-bandwidth product for compact lidar applications (Conference Presentation)

High-speed photodetectors with high sensitivity and low noise are needed in Lidar applications. Existing p-i-n photodetectors and avalanche photodetectors (APD) are limited by the gain-bandwidth product. Plasmonic optical antenna technology provides an effective approach to increase the gain-bandwidth product with a low noise level. In this paper, we report a pointed-dipole optical antenna enhanced APD with a high gain-bandwidth product and ultra-low noise and ultra-small form factor. This kind of plasmonic optical antenna enhanced APDs can also be used in high-density optical interconnects.