White Paper

Front end plasma solutions for InP‑based Lasers and Photodiodes

Author

Grant Baldwin
Technical Marketing Manager, Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology

Continuously increasing global data traffic is putting pressure on the optical communication network and driving demand for transceivers with more and more bandwidth. InP-based photonic integrated circuits are already firmly established in this market and manufacturing capability is expected to scale up to support the required network infrastructure transformation.

The key applications of InP-based components include lasers for silicon photonics, transceivers in data centres, mobile backhaul, access networks and metro markets. The properties of InP and related compound semiconductor materials make them desirable semiconductors for the manufacture of optoelectronic devices that can operate at high frequencies. Furthermore, their natural wavelength range of operation of 1300 – 1650 nm perfectly matches the optimal spectral range of optical.

Multiple processing steps are required to fabricate InP-based DFB, EML and photodiodes. In this white paper, we give an overview of the main fabrication steps to produce reliable lasers and photodiodes and we share our processing capability.