50 GBit/s Photodetectors Based on Wafer-Scale Graphene for Integrated Silicon Photonic Communication Systems

Optical data links are the backbone of today's telecommunication infrastructure. The integration of electronic and optic components on one chip is one of the most attractive routes to further increase the system performance. Here, we present the fabrication of photodetectors based on CVD-grown graphene on silicon photonic waveguides. The devices operate bias-free in the C-band at 1550 nm and show an extrinsic -3 dB bandwidth of 41 GHz. We demonstrate that these detectors work at data rates up to 50 GBit/s with excellent signal integrity.