Photodiode photodetector with adjustable active area
AssigneeBT&D Technologies Limited
InventorRichard G. Plumb
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The output of semiconductor optical sources is monitored by a photo detector including a photodiode having a photosensitivity which is less than the total active area of the device. Conveniently these active areas may be arranged in groups. The electrical output of selected areas or groups of areas or both may be arranged to be enabled or disabled as appropriate to provide the required photo responsivity of the device.
Claims28
A photo-diode photo-detector having a photo-sensitive region which comprises a plurality of distinct photo-diode active areas, each active area having plural electrically connected subareas distributed over said photo-sensitive region and means for selectively enabling or disabling one or more of the active areas.
A photo-diode photo-detector having a plurality of active photo-diode areas in a photo-responsive region such that the ratio (the fill factor) of the total active area to the total surface area of the photo-responsive region is less than 1, each of said active areas including plural electrically connected sub-areas distributed over said photo-responsive region.
A method of adjusting the electrical output of an optical source including a photo-diode photo-detector having a plurality of active areas, comprising the step of selectively making or breaking electrical connection between an output port of the photo-detector and one or more active areas of the photo-detector.
A photo-diode photo-detector comprising:
- a plurality of non-overlapping separated photo-sensitive active photo-diode areas distributed over a photo-responsive region of a semi-conductor substrate;
- and
- electrical contact strips also disposed on said substrate and electrically interconnecting at least one group of said active photo-diode areas to at least one terminal bonding pad on said substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.