Silicon single-photon avalanche diodes with nano-structured light trapping

Kai Zang (), Xiao Jiang, Yijie Huo, Xun Ding, Matthew Morea, Xiaochi Chen, Ching-Ying Lu, Jian Ma, Ming Zhou, Zhenyang Xia, Zongfu Yu, Theodore I. Kamins, Qiang Zhang and James S. Harris
Additional contact information
Kai Zang: Stanford University
Xiao Jiang: University of Science and Technology of China
Yijie Huo: Stanford University
Xun Ding: University of Science and Technology of China
Matthew Morea: Stanford University
Xiaochi Chen: Stanford University
Ching-Ying Lu: Stanford University
Jian Ma: University of Science and Technology of China
Ming Zhou: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Zhenyang Xia: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Zongfu Yu: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Theodore I. Kamins: Stanford University
Qiang Zhang: University of Science and Technology of China
James S. Harris: Stanford University

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract Silicon single-photon avalanche detectors are becoming increasingly significant in research and in practical applications due to their high signal-to-noise ratio, complementary metal oxide semiconductor compatibility, room temperature operation, and cost-effectiveness. However, there is a trade-off in current silicon single-photon avalanche detectors, especially in the near infrared regime. Thick-junction devices have decent photon detection efficiency but poor timing jitter, while thin-junction devices have good timing jitter but poor efficiency. Here, we demonstrate a light-trapping, thin-junction Si single-photon avalanche diode that breaks this trade-off, by diffracting the incident photons into the horizontal waveguide mode, thus significantly increasing the absorption length. The photon detection efficiency has a 2.5-fold improvement in the near infrared regime, while the timing jitter remains 25 ps. The result provides a practical and complementary metal oxide semiconductor compatible method to improve the performance of single-photon avalanche detectors, image sensor arrays, and silicon photomultipliers over a broad spectral range.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00733-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-00733-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00733-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().