Gigahertz-gated InGaAs/InP single-photon detector with detection efficiency exceeding 55% at 1550 nm

Journal Article · Sat Feb 28 04:00:00 EST 2015 · Journal of Applied Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4913527· OSTI ID:22413152

Comandar, L. C. ^[1]; Fröhlich, B.; Dynes, J. F.; Sharpe, A. W.; Lucamarini, M.; Yuan, Z. L.; Shields, A. J. ^[1]; Penty, R. V. ^[2]

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1. Toshiba Research Europe Ltd., 208 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4 0GZ (United Kingdom)
2. Engineering Department, Cambridge University, 9 J J Thomson Ave, Cambridge CB3 0FA (United Kingdom)

We report on a gated single-photon detector based on InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiodes (APDs) with a single-photon detection efficiency exceeding 55% at 1550 nm. Our detector is gated at 1 GHz and employs the self-differencing technique for gate transient suppression. It can operate nearly dead time free, except for the one clock cycle dead time intrinsic to self-differencing, and we demonstrate a count rate of 500 Mcps. We present a careful analysis of the optimal driving conditions of the APD measured with a dead time free detector characterization setup. It is found that a shortened gate width of 360 ps together with an increased driving signal amplitude and operation at higher temperatures leads to improved performance of the detector. We achieve an afterpulse probability of 7% at 50% detection efficiency with dead time free measurement and a record efficiency for InGaAs/InP APDs of 55% at an afterpulse probability of only 10.2% with a moderate dead time of 10 ns.

• OSTI ID: 22413152
• Journal Information: Journal of Applied Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Applied Physics Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 117; ISSN JAPIAU; ISSN 0021-8979
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COUNTING RATES
DEAD TIME
DETECTION
EFFICIENCY
GALLIUM ARSENIDES
GHZ RANGE
INDIUM ARSENIDES
INDIUM PHOSPHIDES
OPERATION
PHOTODIODES
PHOTONS
TRANSIENTS