Balanced InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiodes for single photon detection

Zhiwen Lu; Wenlu Sun; Xiaoguang Zheng; Joe Campbell; Xudong Jiang; Mark A. Itzler

doi:10.1117/12.2000154

10 October 2012 Balanced InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiodes for single photon detection

Zhiwen Lu, Wenlu Sun, Xiaoguang Zheng, Joe Campbell, Xudong Jiang, Mark A. Itzler

Proceedings Volume 8460, Biosensing and Nanomedicine V; 84601H (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2000154
Event: SPIE NanoScience + Engineering, 2012, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Abstract—We demonstrate a sinusoidally-gated InGaAs/InP photodiode pair operated at wavelength of 1310 nm with high photon detection efficiency (PDE) and low dark count rate (DCR). The photodiode pair is biased in a balanced scenario so that the common component of the output signal is cancelled. The concept of balanced photodiodes helps improve detection efficiency while canceling the common mode signal, which, in this case, is the capacitive response of the photodiodes. In conventional sinusoidal gating, an extra component, – an RF filter (or several) at the gating frequency, is utilized to filter out the gating signal and leave the avalanche signal for detection. For this configuration, sinusoidally-gated counting systems are restricted to a single frequency. With the balanced single photon diodes (SPAD), sinusoidal gating within a continuous frequency range is feasible. A printed circuit with symmetric layout of two bias tees was fabricated on a duroid board to enable the application of AC and DC signals for the dual SPADs. At a laser repletion rate of 1 MHz and temperature of 240 K the DCR and PDE were 58 kHz and 43%, respectively. Afterpulsing probability was lower compared with a sinusoidually-gated single SPAD. Jitter of 240 ps was achieved with 1 photon per pulse for an excess bias of 1.6%.

Citation Download Citation

Zhiwen Lu, Wenlu Sun, Xiaoguang Zheng, Joe Campbell, Xudong Jiang, and Mark A. Itzler "Balanced InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiodes for single photon detection", Proc. SPIE 8460, Biosensing and Nanomedicine V, 84601H (10 October 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2000154

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