Monte Carlo simulations of the bandwidth of InAlAs avalanche photodiodes

We present a Monte Carlo simulation of the bandwidth of an InAlAs avalanche photodiode with an undepleted absorber. The carrier velocities are simulated in the charge layer and the multiplication region. It is shown that the velocity overshoot effect is not as significant as simpler models have suggested. At high electric field intensity, the electron effective saturation velocity is only slightly higher when impact ionization is significant, compared with when impact ionization is absent. The simulated 3 dB bandwidth is consistent with experiments for gains up to 50.