Non-Markovian property of afterpulsing effect in single-photon avalanche detector

TL;DR

This paper reveals that the afterpulsing effect in single-photon avalanche diodes is non-Markovian, exhibiting a memory effect that influences its probability based on previous avalanching history, which is crucial for improving high-rate SPAD performance.

Contribution

The study demonstrates the non-Markovian nature of afterpulsing in SPADs through theoretical and experimental analysis, providing new insights into its underlying mechanisms.

Findings

Afterpulsing probability increases with the number of ignition pulses.

The effect exhibits a clear memory effect, indicating non-Markovian behavior.

Results inform manufacturing and evaluation of high-count-rate SPADs.

Abstract

The single-photon avalanche photodiode(SPAD) has been widely used in research on quantum optics. The afterpulsing effect, which is an intrinsic character of SPAD, affects the system performance in most experiments and needs to be carefully handled. For a long time, afterpulsing has been presumed to be determined by the pre-ignition avalanche. We studied the afterpulsing effect of a commercial InGaAs/InP SPAD (The avalanche photodiode model is: Princeton Lightwave PGA-300) and demonstrated that its afterpulsing is non-Markovian, with a memory effect in the avalanching history. Theoretical analysis and experimental results clearly indicate that the embodiment of this memory effect is the afterpulsing probability, which increases as the number of ignition-avalanche pulses increase. This conclusion makes the principle of the afterpulsing effect clearer and is instructive to the manufacturing processes and afterpulsing evaluation of high-count-rate SPADs. It can also be regarded as a fundamental premise to handle the afterpulsing signals in many applications, such as quantum communication and quantum random number generation.