Analysis of gate-controlled single photon avalanche diode with high photon-detection-probability

Abstract

Fluorescent optical fiber temperature sensors require high-performance silicon-based single photon detectors with large-scale on-chip integration capabilities to improve the detection accuracy of the system. Therefore, this paper proposes a gate-controlled single photon avalanche diode (GC-SPAD) with high photon-detection-probability (PDP). In order to verify the high photon-detection-probability, a comparative analysis is conducted between GC-SPAD and traditional SPAD (T-SPAD) of the same size. Silvaco-TCAD is used to verify the basic principles of SPAD. The T-SPAD device and the GC-SPAD device are manufactured based on the standard 0.18μm bipolar CMOS DMOS (BCD) process By building a passive quenching circuit, important electrical parameters of two types of SPAD device can be obtained. The test results show that the avalanche breakdown voltages of T-SPAD and GC-SPAD are 11.55 V and 11.7 V respectively. Under the experimental conditions of 20 °C (over-bias voltage of 2 V), the PDP of T-SPAD (20μm) in the wavelength range of 440 nm∼720 nm reaches 22.43%, and the PDP reaches a peak (32.27%) at a wavelength of 500 nm. The dark count rate(DCR) of the device is 2.54 kHz. The PDP of GC-SPAD (20μm) reaches 29.55% in the wavelength range of 440 nm∼720 nm, and the response peak of the device is at 500 nm (42%). The DCR of GC-SPAD is only 1.11 kHz. Hence, compared with other SPAD devices of the same type, the PDP and the DCR of GC-SPAD device has obvious advantages.