High-Speed Single-Photon Detection with Avalanche Photodiodes in the Near Infrared

Abstract

As the requisite optical components in quantum information processing, single-pho‐ ton detectors of high performance at the near-infrared wavelengths are in urgent need. In this paper, we review our recent development in high-speed single-photon detection with avalanche photodiodes, increasing the working repetition frequency up to GHz. Ingenious techniques, such as capacitance-balancing, self-differencing, low-pass filtering, and frequency up-conversion, were employed to achieve highspeed single-photon detection with high detection efficiency and low error counts, of‐ fering facility for many important applications, such as laser ranging and imaging, quantum key distribution at GHz clock rate.