Abstract

Photodetectors (PD’s) exhibit significant nonlinear behavior when the incident optical power density is high.^1–3 Numerical techniques have been used⁴ to analyze PD responses; however, the results contradict what is experimentally observed.^1,2 This is due in part to the assumption⁴ that the main nonlinearity stems from a potential drop due to loading of the external circuit. However, with large photogenerated carrier densities, carrier flow leads to a large opposing space-charge field, which is shown here to collapse the applied field.

© 1993 Optical Society of America