Room-temperature high-speed InGaAs/InP single-photon detector with high detection efficiency

Abstract

InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are one of the optimum choices for the practical applications requiring singlephoton detection in the near-infrared. In this paper, we demonstrate a high-speed single-photon detector (SPD) based on an APD working at room temperature with high detection efficiency. Ultrashort pulses are employed as the gating signals applied on the APD to reduce the avalanche time, efficiently reducing the error counts which include the dark count and afterpulses. Low-pass filters are cascaded to remove the spike noise down to the thermal noise level, guaranteeing the extraction of the photon-induced avalanche signal. Finally, the detection efficiency of 50.4% at 1310 nm is achieved with the dark count rate (DCR) of 3.1×10-4/gate and the afterpulse probability (AP) of 5.6% at 1 GHz at the temperature of ~21℃. This room-temperature SPD with such high performance could further expanding the APD’s applications in ranging and imaging systems.