Practical fast gate rate InGaAs/InP single-photon avalanche photodiodes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a practical high-speed near-infrared single-photon detection method using InGaAs/InP SPADs, achieving high count rates and efficiency suitable for various applications.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel combination of sine gating and self-differencing techniques for fast, efficient single-photon detection with InGaAs/InP SPADs at near-infrared wavelengths.

Findings

Detection efficiency of 9.3% at 921 MHz gating

Dark count probability of 2.8×10^{-6} ns^{-1}

Maximum count rate approaching 100 MHz

Abstract

We present a practical and easy-to-implement method for high-speed near infrared single-photon detection based on InGaAs/InP single-photon avalanche photodiodes (SPADs), combining aspects of both sine gating and self-differencing techniques. At a gating frequency of 921 MHz and temperature of -30 $^{\circ}$C we achieve: a detection efficiency of 9.3 %, a dark count probability of 2.8$\times10^{-6}$ ns$^{-1}$, while the afterpulse probability is 1.6$\times10^{-4}$ ns$^{-1}$, with a 10 ns "count-off time" setting. In principle, the maximum count rate of the SPAD can approach 100 MHz, which can significantly improve the performance for diverse applications.