High-efficiency and low-jitter Silicon single-photon avalanche diodes based on nanophotonic absorption enhancement

TL;DR

This paper introduces a nanostructured silicon SPAD that achieves high detection efficiency and low timing jitter across a broad spectrum, overcoming previous design limitations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel nanostructured silicon SPAD design that enhances performance and is easy to fabricate for practical use.

Findings

Significant improvement in detection efficiency and timing jitter compared to conventional SPADs.

Broad spectral range performance demonstrated through simulations.

Design is compatible with existing fabrication processes.

Abstract

Silicon single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) is a core device for single-photon detection in the visible and the near-infrared range, and widely used in many applications. However, due to limits of the structure design and device fabrication for current silicon SPADs, the key parameters of detection befficiency and timing jitter are often forced to compromise. Here, we propose a nanostructured silicon SPAD, which achieves high detection efficiency with excellent timing jitter simultaneously over a broad spectral range. The optical and electric simulations show significant performance enhancement compared with conventional silicon SPAD devices. This nanostructured devices can be easily fabricated and thus well suited for practical applications.