Silicon single-photon avalanche diodes with nano-structured light trapping

Abstract

Silicon single-photon avalanche detectors are becoming increasingly significant in research and in practical applications due to their high signal-to-noise ratio, complementary metal oxide semiconductor compatibility, room temperature operation, and cost-effectiveness. However, there is a trade-off in current silicon single-photon avalanche detectors, especially in the near infrared regime. Thick-junction devices have decent photon detection efficiency but poor timing jitter, while thin-junction devices have good timing jitter but poor efficiency. Here, we demonstrate a light-trapping, thin-junction Si single-photon avalanche diode that breaks this trade-off, by diffracting the incident photons into the horizontal waveguide mode, thus significantly increasing the absorption length. The photon detection efficiency has a 2.5-fold improvement in the near infrared regime, while the timing jitter remains 25 ps. The result provides a practical and complementary metal oxide semiconductor compatible method to improve the performance of single-photon avalanche detectors, image sensor arrays, and silicon photomultipliers over a broad spectral range.

Instantaneous Microwave Frequency Measurement Based on Two Cascaded Photonic Crystal Nanocavities

“…Moreover, the required powers could be reduced. By adopting more advanced manufacturing methods and postprocessing techniques [29][30][31], the device loss and Q factor can be largely improved [32]. On the other hand, the air hole positions of the PC cavity could be optimized to further increase the cavity Q factor and tuning efficiency [33][34][35][36].…”

Effects of p doping on GaAs/AlGaAs SAM-APDs for X-rays detection

“…The Gaussian component is characterized by mean μ and variance 2 , and the exponential one by rate . It has a characteristic positive skew from the exponential component, which is the expected signal from an APD [15]. In this case the fit parameters can be quoted with μ = 4.62 × 10 −10 s, = 14.3 ps, height 4.1 × 10 −4 and = 1/ with = 66 ps resulting in a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of ( ) of about 100 ps and a rise time of 25 ps.…”

Overcoming the Bandwidth-Quantum Efficiency Trade-Off in Conventional Photodetectors

“…The low-dimensional structures are able to control light for further interaction with the absorbing materials, excite the lateral propagation mode, and reduce surface reflection. Recently, silicon SPADs incorporating photon-trapping nanostructures were demonstrated [69]. Through diffraction of the vertically incident photons into the horizontal waveguide mode, the photons are trapped in the inverted pyramidal thin-film, and the absorption length is significantly increased to enhance the photon detection efficiency while retaining a low timing jitter.…”