A new germanium photodiode with extended long-wavelength response

Mathur, Dhirendra; Webb, P.P.

doi:10.1109/iedm.1968.188053

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…where nD is the dark-counting rate, NEP is the detector noise-equivalent power, T is the measurement time, -q is the photon-detection efficiency of the detector, and hv is the photon energy. The dark counts essentially result from three contributions: (1) carriers emitted from trapping levels that were populated in previous avalanche pulses, (2) carriers thermally generated in the active volume of the device, and (3) carriers generated by band-to-band tunneling processes.' 9 The contribution arising from trapping centers is due to the peculiar single-carrier sensitivity of the Geiger-mode operation.…”

Section: Dark-counting Rate and Sensitivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tunneling processes are negligible in silicon SPAD's with Vb values higher than 10 V because of the large silicon band gap, and they set the ultimate dark-counting rate achievable with germanium SPAD's.1 9 Figure 10 shows the dependence on temperature of the dark-counting rate of a F-APD in the self-quenching regime. 2 ' The measurements were performed with one of the device's contacts connected to the voltage source through a 10-kfl resistor and the other connected to a 1-kfl resistor, which was employed to measure the avalanche current flowing through the device. The bias was adjusted to have a reverse current of 40 A.…”

Section: Dark-counting Rate and Sensitivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A low-frequency noise equivalent power (NEP) of a few femtowatts per squared-root of herz at a wavelength of 1.55 [Lm is quoted for commercially available units,' while a value of 3.7 fW/Hz1/ 2 at 1.625 Elm was reported for a germanium detector that was 2 cm long with a sensitive area 7 mm x 7 mm, which is very similar to nuclear-radiation detectors. 2 In these applications the photodetector is followed by a low-noise preamplifier, and the ultimate sensitivity is determined essentially by the electronic noise of the amplifier input stage. Nowadays fast and sensitive photodetectors working beyond 1 im are required in the research of new laser sources, in studies on semiconductor materials, and for work on pharmaceutical and photochemical products, not to mention for all the applications related to optical communications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Single-photon detection beyond 1 μm: performance of commercially available germanium photodiodes

et al. 1994

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Germanium avalanche photodiodes (APD's) working biased above the breakdown voltage detect single optical photons in the near-infrared wavelength range. We give guidelines for the selection of devices suitable for photon-counting applications among the commercial samples, and we discuss in detail how the devices should be operated to achieve the best performance, both in terms of noise-equivalent power (NEP) and the timing-equivalent bandwidth. We introduce the driving electronics and we show that, in the measurements of fast optical signals, the adoption of single-photon techniques is very favorable, notwithstanding that presently available photodiodes are not designed for this purpose. On the contrary, in the detection of cw signals, the lower NEP values achieved in photon counting may not be sufficient to justify the replacement of conventional analog p-i-n germanium detectors, which offer comparable performance with a definitely larger sensitive area. Finally, we show that, by properly choosing theoperating conditions, some selected APD's achieve an 85-ps time resolution in the detection of optical photons at a 1.3-µm wavelength, which corresponds to a timing-equivalent bandwidth of 1.8 GHz. To the best of our knowledge, this time resolution is the lowest reported to date for single-photon detectors in the near infrared.

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Section: Dark-counting Rate and Sensitivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dark-counting Rate and Sensitivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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