Investigation of the dependence of noise characteristics of SPAD on the gate parameters in sine-wave gated single-photon detectors

TL;DR

This study examines how gate parameters affect noise in sine-wave gated single-photon detectors at 1550 nm, revealing dependencies and proposing improvements for quantum key distribution applications.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the influence of gate voltage and parameters on noise characteristics of SWG SPDs for QKD.

Findings

Dark count rate decreases with higher gating voltage at constant QE.

Dark count rate rises sharply beyond a certain gating voltage.

Universal empirical models for SPD parameters are complex to develop.

Abstract

In this paper, we have investigated a self-developed sine wave gated (SWG) single-photon detector (SPD) for 1550 nm wavelength primary for quantum key distribution (QKD) usage. We have investigated different gate parameters` influence on the SPD`s noise characteristics. We have admitted that with an increase of gating voltage and constant value of quantum efficiency (QE), the dark count rate (DCR) decreases. There have been made some recommendations to improve SPD`s and whole QKD device's characteristics based on these observations. There have been discovered the quick rise of the DCR value with the increase of gating voltage above some certain value and this value was different for different detectors. It has been shown that universal empirical dependence compilation to connect control and operational parameters of SPD is a non-trivial task.