Optical communication system comprising a resonant tunneling diode

摘要

An optical interconnection system (300) for electronic circuitry with laser emitters (306-308), optical links (310) for transmission of optical signals, and optical modulators (322-324) and transparent detectors (312-314) connected to electronic circuitry to couple optical signals and electrical signals. Each transparent detector (312-314) includes a double barrier quantum well resonant tunneling diode abutting a photosensitive quantum well local electric field enhancer. The photosensitive quantum well absorbs only a few percent of input light and thus provides high fanout.