An optically controlled silicon MESFET (OPFET) was fabricated by diffusion process to enhance the quantum efficiency, which is the most important optoelectronic device performance usually affected by ion implantation process due to large number of process induced defects. The desired impurity distribution profile and the junction depth were obtained solely with diffusion, and etching processes monitored by atomic force microscope, spreading resistance profiling and C-V measurements. With this approach fabrication induced defects are reduced, leading to significantly improved performance. The fabricated OPFET devices showed proper I-V characteristics with desired pinch-off voltage and threshold voltage for normally-on devices. The peak photoresponsivity was obtained at 620 nm wavelength and the extracted external quantum efficiency from the photoresponse plot was found to be approximately 87.9%. This result is evidence of enhancement of device quantum efficiency fabricated by the diffusion process. It also supports the fact that the diffusion process is an extremely suitable process for fabrication of high performance optoelectronic devices. The maximum gain of OPFET at optical modulated signal was obtained at the frequency of 1 MHz with rise time and fall time approximately of 480 nS. The extracted transconductance shows the possible potential of device speed performance improvements for shorter gate length. The results support the use of a diffusion process for fabrication of high performance optoelectronic devices.