Full-band Monte Carlo simulation of high-energy carrier transport in single photon avalanche diodes: Computation of breakdown probability, time to avalanche breakdown, and jitter

Dolgos, Denis; Meier, Hektor; Schenk, Andreas; Witzigmann, Bernd

doi:10.1063/1.3652844

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The details of our ensemble full-band Monte Carlo simulator CarloS and the approximations of the scattering model have been presented in Refs. [8,9].…”

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confidence: 97%

“…The details of our ensemble full-band Monte Carlo simulator CarloS and the approximations of the scattering model have been presented in Refs. [8,9].We simulate PIN diode structures with intrinsic region widths between 55 nm and 500 nm (made of InP, In 0.52 Al 0.48 As, and GaAs) operated in the Geigermode with a temperature of T = 300 K [6]. Single carriers are injected with an energy of 10 meV at time t = 0 ps into the PIN diode.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Full-band Monte Carlo simulation of single photon avalanche diodes

Dolgos¹,

Meier²,

Schenk³

et al. 2013

2013 IEEE Photonics Conference

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Single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) enable a variety of innovative applications in the fields of biology, medicine, and physics. The propagation of single photons with optical fibers requires the usage of telecommunication wavelengths in the near infrared (NIR) spectral range. NIR SPADs, which can be employed for this application, consist of an absorber layer (In 0.53 Ga 0.47 As) and a multiplication layer (InP or In 0.52 Al 0.48 As). The product of the quantum efficiency η q , the probability that the photoexcited carrier survives into the multiplier P c , and the breakdown probability P b that the carrier activates a self-sustaining avalanche designate the photon detection efficiency [1] PDE = η q P c P b . The breakdown probability contributes primarily to the electric field dependence of the PDE and increases with the electric field. Therefore, a higher electric field enhances the photon detection efficiency. However, band-to-band or trap-assisted tunneling in the multiplication layer initiate dark counts and degrade the performance of SPAD devices at higher electric fields. Hence, to obtain a higher photon detection efficiency for a given increase of the electric field and tunneling rate, a steep rise of the breakdown probability with applied bias is favorable. The SPAD's timing jitter arises from various sources. The avalanche build-up time is the main contribution to the timing jitter [1].The full-band Monte Carlo (FBMC) method is considered to be the most accurate device simulation method within the physics of semiclassical charge transport. The FBMC approach for the solution of the Boltzmann transport equation serves as benchmark for approximate methods. FBMC simulations are computationally heavy. This burden forced previous numerical investigations on the SPAD * denis.dolgos@synopsys.com breakdown characteristics to use simplified charge transport models [2-6]. However, nowadays standard computer clusters together with computationally efficient approaches [7] enable the gathering of sufficient statistics with FBMC simulations. The computation of breakdown probabilities and timing jitter has become feasible. The details of our ensemble full-band Monte Carlo simulator CarloS and the approximations of the scattering model have been presented in Refs. [8,9].We simulate PIN diode structures with intrinsic region widths between 55 nm and 500 nm (made of InP, In 0.52 Al 0.48 As, and GaAs) operated in the Geigermode with a temperature of T = 300 K [6]. Single carriers are injected with an energy of 10 meV at time t = 0 ps into the PIN diode. Breakdown occurs when the total number of carriers exceeds 30 within the simulation domain. The simulation stops when a breakdown has not taken place within 500 ps. We have repeated the simulations 2500 times per reverse bias point. Figure 1 presents the breakdown probability versus the excess bias V ex = V r − V b for the different gain materials and multiplication layer widths. We define the breakdown voltage V b as P b (V b ) = 10 −3 . Three regions characterize the d...

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“…The details of our ensemble full-band Monte Carlo simulator CarloS and the approximations of the scattering model have been presented in Refs. [8,9].…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Full-band Monte Carlo simulation of single photon avalanche diodes

Dolgos¹,

Meier²,

Schenk³

et al. 2013

2013 IEEE Photonics Conference

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“…Finally, the balance between the positive feedback of the charge avalanche and the reduction of the effective length of the gain material governs the behavior of the breakdown probability steepness for changing multiplication widths. 6,8,11 The numerical computation of the highenergy charge dynamics of the charge multiplication process with the FBMC technique reveals the dominance of the positive feedback over the reduction of the effective gain material width for the three investigated materials. Figure 10 illustrates the mean time to avalanche breakdown ht b i and its jitter r versus the excess bias.…”

Section: Simulation Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Full-band Monte Carlo simulation of high-energy carrier transport in single photon avalanche diodes with multiplication layers made of InP, InAlAs, and GaAs

Dolgos

Meier

Schenk

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Physics

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We investigate the high-energy charge dynamics of electrons and holes in the multiplication process of single photon avalanche diodes. The technologically important multiplication layer materials InP and In 0.52 Al 0.48 As, used in near infrared photon detectors, are analyzed and compared with GaAs. We use the full-band Monte Carlo technique to solve the Boltzmann transport equation which improves the state-of-the-art treatment of high-field carrier transport in the multiplication process. As a result of the computationally efficient treatment of the scattering rates and the parallel central processing unit power of modern computer clusters, the full-band Monte Carlo calculation of the breakdown characteristics has become feasible. The breakdown probability features a steeper rise versus the reverse bias for smaller multiplication layer widths for InP, In 0.52 Al 0.48 As, and GaAs. Both the time to avalanche breakdown and jitter decrease with shrinking size of the multiplication region for the three examined III-V semiconductors.

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“…These could include those due to the multiplication process itself 32,33 , including expansion of the current filament 34 , or those external to the active device. For thick Ge absorption layers the contribution to jitter from the processes modelled here could become significant in otherwise low-jitter designs 1 or operating conditions 34 .…”

Section: Preferred Ge Absorber Dopingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of absorber layer dopants on performance of Ge/Si single photon avalanche diodes

Pilgrim

Ikonić

Kelsall

2013

Journal of Applied Physics

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UKMonte Carlo electronic transport simulations are applied to investigate the influence of the Ge absorber layer on the performance of Ge/Si single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs). Ge dopant type and concentration control the internal electric field gradients, which directly influence the probabilistic distribution of times from the point of charge photo-generation to that of transmission over the Ge/Si heterojunction.The electric field adjacent to the heterointerface is found to be the dominant factor in achieving rapid transmission, leading to a preference for p-type dopants in the Ge absorber. The contribution to jitter from the Ge layer is estimated and appears relatively independent of bias, though scales near-linearly with layer height.

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Full-band Monte Carlo simulation of high-energy carrier transport in single photon avalanche diodes: Computation of breakdown probability, time to avalanche breakdown, and jitter

Cited by 15 publications

References 43 publications

Full-band Monte Carlo simulation of single photon avalanche diodes

Full-band Monte Carlo simulation of single photon avalanche diodes

Full-band Monte Carlo simulation of high-energy carrier transport in single photon avalanche diodes with multiplication layers made of InP, InAlAs, and GaAs

Influence of absorber layer dopants on performance of Ge/Si single photon avalanche diodes

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