Microwave and millimeter-wave losses in conventional optoelectronic devices

In this paper, microwave characteristics of conventional optoelectronic devices, with emphasis on devices with microstrip (MS) and coplanar waveguide (CPW) electrode structures, are obtained. This analysis is essential for any improvement in the structure of the conventional optoelectronic devices so as to obtain a high performance. Microwave loss is one of the important bandwidth limitation factors in microwave and millimeter-wave (mmW) optical devices. Different sources of loss including ohmic, dielectric and radiating loss in MS and CPW of conventional optical devices are analyzed and compared. The results show that the total microwave loss increases with frequency in conventional MS and CPW waveguides. Also, in traveling-wave optoelectronic devices, the bandwidth is limited in the optical part by effects such as the carrier transit time effect and in the microwave part by factors such as length of the devices in active and non-active sections. In addition, validation of the results in the paper is performed with published theoretical and/or measurement results.