Proposal and demonstration of germanium-on-silicon lock-in pixels for indirect time-of-flight based three-dimensional sensing

TL;DR

This paper introduces germanium-on-silicon lock-in pixels for indirect time-of-flight 3D sensing, achieving high efficiency and bandwidth, leading to improved depth accuracy in various environments.

Contribution

It demonstrates a novel germanium-on-silicon pixel design that outperforms silicon pixels in quantum efficiency and frequency response for 3D sensing applications.

Findings

Germanium-on-silicon pixels maintain high quantum efficiency at GHz frequencies.

The new pixels achieve superior depth accuracy indoors and outdoors.

Potential for longer wavelength laser integration in 3D sensing systems.

Abstract

We propose the use of germanium-on-silicon technology for indirect time-of-flight based three-dimensional sensing, and demonstrate a novel lock-in pixel featuring high quantum efficiency and large frequency bandwidth. Compared to silicon pixels, germanium-on-silicon pixels simultaneously maintain a high quantum efficiency and a high demodulation contrast deep into GHz frequency regime, which enable consistently superior depth accuracy in both indoor and outdoor scenarios. Physical model, numerical simulation, device fabrication and characterization, system performance comparison, and laser safety analysis are presented. Our work paves a new path to high-performance time-of-flight rangers and imagers, as well as potential adoption of lasers operated at a longer near infrared wavelength that falls outside of the operation window of silicon pixels.