title: Gaussian pulse gated InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode for single photon detection.
abstract: The capacitive response noise has been problematic for high-speed single photon detection based on gated InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiodes. Traditionally, the noise must be suppressed by complex electronic circuit if low afterpulse probability is desired. In this Letter, we propose a compact and flexible method for noise cancellation, which gates the photodiode with a Gaussian pulse. Because of the differential effect of junction capacitor, the shape of the capacitive response output in our method is the first-order derivative of the Gaussian function that can be matched by the rising edge of a delayed and attenuated version of the gating pulse itself. With matching signal, the avalanche pulse is raised onto a flat platform that can be easily discriminated from the background. For 1550 nm optical signal, the detection efficiency could reach 10.2% with 9.7×10(-6) per gate dark count probability and 3.4% afterpulse probability at 80 MHz gating frequency. Experimental results have shown that the proposed method can decrease the afterpulse probability sharply while maintaining the detection efficiency and dark count performance.
authors: Institute of Optic Communication Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210008, China.
authors: Yixin
authors: Y
authors: Zhang
authors: Xuping
authors: X
authors: Zhang
authors: Shun
authors: S
authors: Wang