We demonstrate photon counting in germanium avalanche photodiodes biased beyond breakdown and quenched with a simple series resistance circuit. The devices show moderate (> 7%) quantum efficiency with limited afterpulsing and dark counts and subnanosecond jitter.
A novel planar separate absorption, charge sheet, grading and multiplication avalanche photodiode (APD) structure incorporating a partial charge sheet in the device periphery is described, which allows for straightforward fabrication of APD devices without the use of guard rings. Metalorganic chemical vapor deposition grown, Zn-diffused InP/InGaAs APD devices have been fabricated. High dc gains well in excess of 100 and a low primary dark current of 0.1 nA at 0.99 of the breakdown voltage VB have been measured for a 40-μm-diam device. The receiver sensitivity for a bit error rate of 10−9 at a bit rate of 400 Mbit/s was −41 dBm. The −3 dB electrical bandwidth was 2.5 GHz, and the gain-bandwidth product was 30 GHz.
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