Performance evaluation of heterojunction bipolar transistors designed for high optical gain

Abstract

This paper evaluates the performance of thin base Npn heterojunction bipolar transistors designed for high optical gain in the base while biased in the active regime. Pisces/Blaze simulations indicate that injected carrier concentrations exceeding 10/sup 19/ cm/sup -3/ can be achieved resulting in an estimated optical gain /spl sim/3000 cm/sup -1/. Furthermore, a very large increase in differential base electron concentration with emitter current yields a high modulation depth with no insertion loss but low f/sub T/. Estimated performance of this device in a microwave fiber optic link application is given.