High Current Photodetector

For many communication applications, the demand for more bandwidth is a never ending problem. Military system applications often can exceed commercial demands by an order of magnitude or more as SIGINT and IMINT data collection and transmission are keys to our National Security. Optical delivery of RF signals is an increasingly important topic for applications including RF antenna remoting, signal routing, CATV, wireless repeaters and tunnels, in-building coverage, and surveillance and reconnaissance. Communication systems using optical signals are a common approach for both military and commercial applications and advancements made for one application form the foundation for advancements in another application. In recent months, Archcom has recently received a number of requests from a variety of customers regarding high current handling, high linearity photodetectors for a few of the aforementioned applications. These requests were targeting the 20GHz and 40GHz bands. Our existing product at 50GHz was optimized for digital communication systems where achieving a high responsivity/bandwidth product was the primary design goal to create a receiver with the highest sensitivity possible. Archcom's proposal is to modify our world's best commercially available 50GHz waveguide photodetector to improve linearity and current handling capability to address these new customer requests.