Tan, C.H., Velichko, A., Lim, L.W. et al. (1 more author) (2019) Few-photon detection using InAs avalanche photodiodes. Optics Express, 27 (4). pp. 5835-5842. ISSN 1094-4087
Abstract
An avalanche photodiode with a ratio of hole-to-electron ionization coefficients, k = 0, is known to produce negligible excess noise irrespective of the avalanche gain. The low noise amplification process can be utilized to detect very low light levels. In this work, we demonstrated InAs avalanche photodiodes with high external quantum efficiency of 60% (achieved without antireflection coating) at the peak wavelength of 3.48 µm. At 77 K, our InAs avalanche photodiodes show low dark current (limited by 300 K blackbody background radiation), high avalanche gain and negligible excess noise, as InAs exhibits k = 0. They were therefore able to detect very low levels of light, at 15-31 photons per 50 µs laser pulse at 1550 nm wavelength. These correspond to the lowest detected average power by InAs avalanche photodiodes, ranging from 19 to 40 fW. The measurement system’s noise floor was dominated by the pre-amplifier. Our results suggest that, with a lower system noise, InAs avalanche photodiodes have high potential for optical detection of single or few-photon signal levels at wavelengths of 1550 nm or longer.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 21 Jan 2019 09:44 |
Last Modified: | 15 Jul 2020 11:06 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Optical Society of America |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1364/OE.27.005835 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:141321 |