http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330238&

"MUNICH—Glass fibers may become the information superhighways of the information age. Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) succeeded in developing an innovative photo detector for optical data paths—the central component at the receiver side of the glass fibers—that sets new standards as to their size: The researchers claim a footprint of less than 100 square micrometer, ideal for integration on an integrated circuit. Even more impressing is its data rate.

The new photo detector, according to the research team around Sascha Mühlbrandt the smallest worldwide for optical data transmission, permit a significant performance increase of optical communications systems, because they can be integrated on optical semiconductors in large quantities. In their experiments, the researchers reached a throughput up to 40 Gbps—enough to transfer the entire content of a video DVD within a fraction of a second, explains Sascha Mühlbrandt who carried out the related research activities at the Institutes for Microstructure Technology and Institute for Photonics and Quantum Electronics, both subsidiaries of the KIT.

Mühlbrandt is convinced that the throughput of still has upside potential. “This plasmonic internal photoemission detector (PIPED) is the smallest detector ever to reach this data rate”, the researcher said. The devices is 100 times smaller than a conventional photo detector."

Any comments on how POET's detector compares to this?