Abstract
High performance single photon detector at the wavelength of 1550 nm has drawn wide attention and achieved vast improvement due to its significant application in quantum information, quantum key distribution, as well as cosmology. A novel infrared up-conversion single photon detector (USPD) at 1550 nm was proposed to work in free-running regime based on the InGaAs/ InP photodetector (PD)- GaAs/AlGaAs LED up-converter and Si single photon avalanche diode (SPAD). In contrast to conventional In0.53Ga0.47As SPAD, the USPD can suppress dark count rate and afterpulsing efficiently without sacrificing the photon detection efficiency (PDE). A high PDE of ~45% can be achieved by optical adhesive coupling between up-converter and Si SPAD. Using a developed analytical model we gave a noise equivalent power of 1.39 × 10−18 WHz1/2 at 200 K for the USPD, which is better than that of InGaAs SPAD. This work provides a new single photon detection scheme for telecom band.
Highlights
After years of effort, superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD) is close to all of the specifications of an ideal single photon detector, which have a high system detection efficiency (>90%), low dark count rate (
The ttrans can be negligible in the time jitter calculation of the up-conversion single photon detector (USPD). tph is the transmission time of the photons emitted by GaAs LED which is calculated in the order of femtosecond. tsi is the timing resolution of the Si single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) and tsi ≈ 50 ps for a high-performance SPAD33. tspont is the spontaneous lifetime of the LED, which is determined by the bimolecular recombination coefficient (BT) and the majority carrier concentration (NA) of the active layer of the LED (tspont = (Br × NA)−1)
The photons are absorbed in the up-converter and the photon generated carrier multiplication occurs in the Si SPAD
Summary
The performance of a single-photon detector should be assessed, in terms of its spectral range, detection efficiency, the noise equivalent power, dark count rate, dead time and time jitter. In single photon detection applications, a high value of PDE is certainly desirable, but it is by no means the only practical consideration Noise is another key parameter to affect the performance of devices. It should be noted that due to its unique design of USPD, the actual noise that the output terminal could ‘feel’ only includes the noise of Si SPAD itself and the noise resulted from photon fluctuation generated by the up-converter. In the USPD device, the active layer is usually highly doped (~1019 cm−3) for a high radiation recombination efficiency and the bimolecular recombination coefficient is Br = 1.8 × 10−8, 1.9 × 10−9, 7.2 × 10−10 cm3/s at 90 K, 185 K, 300 K34, corresponding to the spontaneous lifetime of the LED is 5.6 ps, 53 ps, 138 ps respectively. The photon detection efficiency (dηeSpi)eonfdSsioSnPlAy Donisthaecoeprttaicinalvcaoluupelfionrgaefsfpiceiceinficcyw(ηavcoeulpelen)gbteht.wAececnotrhdeinLgEtDo the equation (2), and Si SPAD
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