We discuss the structural consideration of high-speed photodetectors used for optical communications, focusing on vertical illumination photodetectors suitable for device fabrication and optical coupling. We fabricate an avalanche photodiode that can handle 100-Gbit/s four-level pulse-amplitude modulation (50 Gbaud) signals, and pin photodiodes for 100-Gbaud operation; both are fabricated with our unique inverted p-side down (p-down) design.
