| The main purpose of this work is to design a high speed, high efficiency traveling wave photodetector at 1550 nm. The design begins with the choice of diode architecture followed by the material choice. Once these two parameters have been chosen the traveling wave design is broken down into three sub-designs, the semiconductor design, the optical design and the microwave design. The semiconductor design is done on an InGaAs/InGaAsP/InP material system design, with the absorbing layer optimized for detection around 1550 nm optical wavelength.;The optical waveguide design for the traveling wave photodetector was done using the Method of Lines (MOL). A MoL formulation was derived for non-anisotropic lossy inhomogeneous material, the results of which were coded in Matlab.;The microwave design was accomplished using a commercially available CAD package based on the Method of moments. Using a commercial simulator two designs were undertaken, one in which the device was optimized for velocity matching while the other was not.;The devices were Fabricated and DC, optical and microwave measurements performed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
