The optical communication system working at the traditional telecommunication band is faced with "capacity crunch" with the rapidly development of optical communication technology. The acceptable loss of 0.2 dB/km (@2 μm) from the hollow-core photonic bandgap fibers as well as the high optical amplification gains (30 dB@2 μm) of thulium-doped fiber amplifiers (CTFA type) provides the potential for the 2 μm wavelength band to alleviate the communication "capacity crunch". As a result, the needs of the 2 μm silicon-based photodetectors is also raised due to its mature and convenient manufacture process. The main solutions of the silicon-based photodetectors include the usage of Ⅲ-Ⅴ compounds with tunable band gap, the introduction of low band gap width materials as absorption regions, the use of new absorption mechanism in optical absorbed material at the 2 μm wavelength band and so on. The Ge material has a high Two Photon Absorption (TPA) coefficient (1 225 GW/cm@2 μm). And the Ge-on-Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) photodetector is an excellent method to realize 2 μm optical signal detection, which is compatible with the standard silicon photonics device manufacturing process that has the advantages of low production difficulty and cost. The purpose of this paper is to verify the feasibility of the Ge-on-SOI photodetector to achieve 2 μm wavelength band photoelectric detection by using the special optical absorption mechanism of TPA.

In this paper, the photoelectric detection at the 2 μm wavelength band based on the physical absorption mechanism of current generated from high TPA of Ge material is realized. The quantification of the photocurrent generated by Ge material through TPA effect is analyzed and discussed in this paper. In the experimental test, we first apply a high power 2 μm wavelength band input light source magnified by thulium-doped fiber amplifiers to the input port (grating coupler) of the commercial waveguide-type Ge-on-SOI photodetector in the on-chip active silicon photonics device test system. Then we adjust the alignment of the optical fiber with the grating coupler and the input light polarization to reduce the optical transmission loss from the input optical fiber to the Ge absorption region. Finally, the TPA photocurrent of the on-chip photodetector is obtained by a probe.

A net photogenerated current up to 651 nA and an estimated value of responsivity greater than 10 mA/W is obtained experimentally under a 2 μm wavelength optical input power of 21.9 dBm.

The work of this paper verifies the scientific feasibility of 2 μm waveband photodetector through the TPA effect of Ge material, and provides experimentally support for the design of the 2 μm wavelength band Ge-on-SOI photodetector based on TPA.