No abstract

No abstract

CMOS single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) have broken into the mainstream by enabling the adoption of imaging, timing, and security technologies in a variety of applications within the consumer, medical and industrial domains. The continued scaling of technology nodes creates many benefits but also obstacles for SPAD-based systems. Maintaining and/or improving upon the high-sensitivity, low-noise, and timing performance of demonstrated SPADs in custom technologies or well-established CMOS image sensor processes remains a challenge. In this paper, we present SPADs based on DPW/BNW junctions in a standard Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) technology with results comparable to the state-of-the-art in terms of sensitivity and noise in a deep sub-micron process. Technology CAD (TCAD) simulations demonstrate the improved PDP with the simple addition of a single existing implant, which allows for an engineered performance without modifications to the process. The result is an 8.8 µm diameter SPAD exhibiting ∼2.6 cps/µm 2 DCR at 20 • C with 7 V excess bias. The improved structure obtains a PDP of 62 % and ∼4.2 % at 530 nm and 940 nm, respectively. Afterpulsing probability is ∼0.97 % and the timing response is 52 ps FWHM when measured with integrated passive quench/active recharge circuitry at 3V excess bias. Index Terms-Single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), Photon counting, depth-sensing, BCD, time-correlated single-photon counting(TCSPC), LIDAR, three-dimensional (3-D) ranging, FLIM, QRNG I. INTRODUCTION L ARGE-FORMAT single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) arrays [1]-[3] are becoming ubiquitous in the timeresolved imaging domain for their utility in applications such as fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM),

No abstract

This work presents a novel InGaAs/InP SPAD structure fabricated using a selective area growth (SAG) method. The surface topography of the selectively grown film deposited within the 70 µm diffusion apertures is used to engineer the Zn diffusion profile to suppress premature edge breakdown. The device achieves a highly uniform active area without the need for shallow diffused guard ring (GR) regions that are inherent in standard InGaAs/InP SPADs. We have obtained 33% and 43% photon detection probability (PDP) at 1550 nm, with 5 V and 7 V excess bias, respectively. These measurements were performed at 300K and 225K. The dark count rate (DCR) per unit area at room temperature and at 5 V excess bias is 430 cps/µm 2 and it decreases to 5 cps/µm 2 at 225K. Timing jitter is measured with passive quenching at 1550 nm as 149 ps at full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM), (300K, 5 V excess bias). The proposed technology is suitable for a number of applications, including optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR), quantum information, and light detection and ranging (LiDAR).