Photon detection with high gain avalanche photodiode arrays

Vasile, Stefan; Gothoskar, Prakash; Sdrulla, Dumitru; Farrell, R.

doi:10.1109/23.682622

Cited by 45 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The value of this dark current can be reduced exponentially by cooling the diode. Some commercially available diodes [7] use TE single and double stage cooling integrated into the diode package to overcome this problem. This cooling also has the advantage of offering more stable characteristics and a higher reliability and repeatability rate.…”

Section: Avalanche Photodiode Properties and Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of tradeoffs for quenched avalanche photodiode sensors for imaging turbid media

Perkins¹,

Hill²,

Mickan³

et al. 2000

Microelectronics Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We evaluate the efficiency of a new optoelectronic quenched avalanche photodiode sensor (QAPD), with the potential of enabling highresolution imaging through turbid media with femtosecond-lasers. Our target application is for imaging cancer in the human breast.We aim to improve the contrast ratio of the unscattered, image bearing photons by reducing or removing the large background of multiply scattered photons that result in poor spatial resolution. The approach that we are taking is to use temporal discrimination: ultra-short (less than a picosecond) laser pulses and time gated detection can select only those photons which travel almost straight through the tissue. The feasibility of resolving a 1 mm structure in 50 mm turbid tissue sample, using our system, will be discussed-there are no results reported to date that approach this performance.We aim to enhance the detection of short pulses through time resolved single photon counting technique. In this technique, the earliest arriving photon of the transmitted pulse is detected with a QAPD. When combined with an efficient electronic quenching circuit, the QAPD is insensitive to the later arriving diffuse photons. High accuracy and efficient measurement of the arrival time of the first photons is achieved by time to amplitude conversion electronics with a temporal resolution of 3 ps. This paper contains a discussion of the laser source, detection circuit, including QAPD, high-speed comparator, critical biasing and intensity counter. ᭧

show abstract

Section: Avalanche Photodiode Properties and Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of tradeoffs for quenched avalanche photodiode sensors for imaging turbid media

Perkins¹,

Hill²,

Mickan³

et al. 2000

Microelectronics Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Assuming a 50 _trad full beam divergence, which is easily achieved with a transmit aperture of one to two inches and the TEM00 mode quality of the microlaser source [Zayhowski, 1998], the beam diameter on the ground is 15 m. Thus, the mean spacing between subsequent spots on the ground is about 7% of the beam diameter and the r_ums are therefore highly contiguous. We will further assume that the receiver FOV is twice as large (100 _trad) as the transmit beam in order to accommodate some alignment and/or stability errors in the boresighting of the transmitter and receiver.…”

Section: One Methodology For Designing a Multi-khz Mars Microaltimetermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The matching indices of refraction and diffused nature of the interface results in low internal optical loss. The monolithic laser resonator is formed by polishing opposite sides of the microchip optically flat and parallel and applying reflective coatings [Zayhowski, 1998]. The resulting microlaser, which is only a few mm in length, produces a train of low energy & 10 laJ), sub-nanosecond pulses at multi-kHz rates with no active switching components and, because of the monolithic structure, can never go out of alignment.…”

Section: Instrument Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These devices can be realized either as specially designed high bandwidth photomultipliers [Charboneau et al, 1992;Ebstein et al, 1996;Priedhorsky et al, 1996] or as Avalanche PhotoDiode (APD) arrays [Vasile et al, 1997]. With high angular resolution of the single photon source, the measured range becomes nearly a pointto-point measurement,…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Photon-counting multikilohertz microlaser altimeters for airborne and spaceborne topographic measurements

Degnan

2002

Journal of Geodynamics

174

113

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We consider the optimum design of photon-counting microlaser altimeters operating from airborne and spacebome platforms under both day and night conditions. Extremely compact Qswitched microlaser transmitters produce trains of low energy pulses at multi-kHz rates and can easily generate subnanosecond pulsewidths for precise ranging. To guide the design, we have modeled the solar noise background and developed simple algorithms, based on Post-Detection Poisson Filtering 0aDPF), to optimally extract the weak altimeter signal from a high noise background during daytime operations. Practical technology issues, such as detector and/or receiver dead times, have also been considered in the analysis. We describe an airbome prototype, being developed under NASA's Instrument Incubator Program, which is designed to operate at a 10 kHz rate from aircratt cruise altitudes up to 12 km with laser pulse energies on the order of a few microjoules. We also analyze a compact and power efficient system designed to operate from Mars orbit at an altitude of 300 km and sample the Martian surface at rates up to 4.3 kHz using a lwatt laser transmitter and an 18 cm telescope. This yields a Power-Aperture Product of 0.24 W-m 2, corresponding to a value almost 4 times smaller than the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter (0.88 W-m2), yet the sampling rate is roughly 400 times greater (4 kHz vs 10 Hz).Relative to conventional high power laser altimeters, advantages of photon-counting laser altimeters include: (1) a more efficient use of available laser photons providing up to two orders of magnitude greater surface sampling rates for a given laser power-telescope aperture product; (2) a simultaneous two order of magnitude reduction in the volume, cost and weight of the telescope system; (3) the unique ability to spatially resolve the source of the surface return in a photon counting mode through the use of pixellated or imaging detectors; and (4) improved vertical and transverse spatial resolution resulting from both (1) and (3). Furthermore, because of significantly lower laser pulse energies, the microaltimeter is inherently more eyesafe to observers on the ground and less prone to internal optical damage, which can terminate a space mission prematurely.https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search

show abstract

“…A US company RMD 2 has been offering APD arrays operating in the Geiger mode [24]. The active area of each diode is 30-40 µm, with a single pixel gain 10 8 and a quantum efficiency of 50% at 400nm.…”

Section: Apd Operating In a Geiger Modementioning

confidence: 99%