Advantages of gated silicon single photon detectors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a gated silicon single photon detector with high efficiency and low dark counts, demonstrating advantages over free-running detectors in specific quantum measurement scenarios.

Contribution

The paper presents a commercially based gated silicon single photon detector with optimized performance and compares its advantages to free-running detectors in practical applications.

Findings

Achieves 45% detection efficiency at 808 nm

Demonstrates advantages in detecting photons in faint light or after strong pulses

Explores charge persistence effects at various temperatures and light intensities

Abstract

We present a gated silicon single photon detector based on a commercially available avalanche photodiode. Our detector achieves a photon detection efficiency of 45\pm5% at 808 nm with 2x 10^-6 dark count per ns at -30V of excess bias and -30{\deg}C. We compare gated and free-running detectors and show that this mode of operation has significant advantages in two representative experimental scenarios: detecting a single photon either hidden in faint continuous light or after a strong pulse. We also explore, at different temperatures and incident light intensities, the "charge persistence" effect, whereby a detector clicks some time after having been illuminated.