In_0.52Al_0.48As Based Single Photon Avalanche Diodes With Stepped E-Field in Multiplication Layers and High Efficiency Beyond 60%

Abstract

We carry out an In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As single photon avalanche diode which exhibits a single photon detection efficiency exceeding 60% at 1310 nm and neat temporal characteristic of 65 ps. A novel concept of dual multiplication layer is incorporated to avoid the tradeoff between dark count rate, afterpulsing and timing jitter, paving the possibility to improve the overall performance of a single photon detector. Based on this elevated device structure, we further optimize the detection efficiency and timing jitter by employing a delicate mesa structure to better confine the electric field distribution within the central multiplication region. For our detector operated under gated mode, a shorten gate width together with an increase of excess bias percentage leads to a significant improvement in the detection performance. We eventually achieve a single photon detection efficiency of 61.4% without the involvement of afterpulsing at the gating frequency of 10 kHz for 200 K.

Development of InGaAs/AlGaAsSb Geiger Mode Avalanche Photodiodes

“…Values of breakdown voltage were extracted by extrapolating M -1 (V) to zero for each temperature point, yielding a Cbd value of 13.5 mV.K -1 . This is much lower compared to ~100 mV.K -1 [32] and 20-50 mV.K -1 [23][24][25][26] for InGaAs/InP and InGaAs/InAlAs APDs.…”

“…Recently, Al0.85Ga0.15As0.56Sb0.44 (AlGaAsSb) has emerged as a superior avalanche material for Linear mode APDs, with experimental reports of highly dissimilar ionization coefficients [28] and low excess noise factor [29] (resulting in very low Noise-Equivalent-Power [30]). Reported values of Cbd for a GaAsSb/AlGaAsSb SAM APD are ~4 mV/K [31], lower than equivalent InGaAs-based APDs with InP (~100 mV.K -1 ) [32] and InAlAs (~20-50 mV.K -1 ) [23][24][25][26] avalanche layers. Having very low Cbd values is advantageous for achieving SPADs with higher operation stability.…”

“…Although the avalanche material InP benefits from a mature manufacturing process, its temperature stability of avalanche characteristics, characterized by thermal coefficient of breakdown voltage, Cbd, is worse than alternative avalanche materials, such as In0.52Al0.48As, hereafter referred to as InAlAs [21]. Coupled with potentially higher avalanche breakdown probability, SPADs using InAlAs avalanche layers have been reported [22][23][24][25][26][27]. However, their performance is still below those of InGaAs/InP SPADs (InAlAs SPADs typically exhibit higher DCR than InP SPADs for a given SPDE).…”

A practical method for determining the dead time in a single-photon avalanche diode with a weak laser beam

“…SPADs are essential for applications operating in the near-infrared range (such as QKD, optical quantum information, and remote sensing). It uses in many different applications where the sensitivity of receiving a single-photon and detecting its arrival time is important[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8].…”