Low-Noise InGaAs/InP Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes for Fiber-Based and Free-Space Applications

Abstract

We present the design and the experimental characterization of a new InGaAs/InP single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD), with two different diameters: i) a 10 µm device, suitable for optical fiber-based quantum applications; ii) a 25 µm one, more appropriate for freespace applications. Compared to a previous generation, we improved the design of the double zinc diffusion and optimized the layer structure. We achieved low dark count rate, around 1 kcps and 4 kcps at 225 K and 5 V excess bias for 10 µm and 25 µm devices, respectively, and down to few tens of counts per seconds at 175 K for the 10 µm detector. At 5 V excess bias and 225 K temperature, both devices also show a high photon detection efficiency (33% at 1064 nm, 31% at 1310 nm and 25% at 1550 nm for the 10 µm SPAD). Afterpulsing has been measured with a custom readout integrated circuit, achieving very low probability values. Timing jitter is comparable to previous-generation devices.

Guard-Ring-Free InGaAs/InP Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Based on a Novel One-Step Zn-Diffusion Technique

“…Measured diffusion tails for 5 and 7 V excess bias are 110 ps and 92 ps respectively. Compared to the result reported in [11], the diffusion tail observed from the device in this work is longer. This is probably because of the thicker InGaAs absorber region utilized in this work.…”

“…There have been significant efforts to improve the performance of InGaAs/InP SPADs through optimizing the Zn diffusion profile, layer dopings and thicknesses [11]- [14]. However, all these designs are based on a standard double diffusion guard ring in which a significant part of the pixel area is not active.…”

Multi-Channel Gating Chip in 0.18 µm High-Voltage CMOS for Quantum Applications

“…The PDP of the integrated SPAD was much larger than the PDP of 25% of InGaAs SPADs at a 1.55 µm wavelength [ 24 ], which were exploited for quantum simulator applications (Supplementary Information in [ 25 ]). The gater chip with the integrated SPADs therefore makes much better quantum simulators possible.…”

Near‐Infrared Light Trapping and Avalanche Multiplication in Silicon Epitaxial Microcrystals

“…[7] At the same time, a sufficiently large energy gap is required to sustain the avalanche multiplication of photocarrier, exploited in Si avalanche photodiodes (APD) to obtain an internal gain [11][12][13] exceeding 10 3 . Ge [14,15] or InGaAs/InP [16,17] APDs typically require layer stacks featuring an absorption region separated from the avalanche region, [18,19] resulting in complex growth/fabrication procedures.…”