PHOTONCOUNTING IN INFRA-RED REGION WITH SUPERLATTICE AVALANCHE PHOTODIODES

使用超晶格雪崩光电二极管进行红外区域的光子计数

• 批准号: 08650048
• 负责人: SAITO Yasunori
• 金额: $ 1.47万
• 依托单位: SHINSHU UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 日本
• 项目类别: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 日本
• 起止时间: 1996 至 1997
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-08650048/
• 关键词: Infrared Wavelength; Superlattice; Avalanche Photodiode; APD; Photonconting

The purpose of this research is to investigate the characteristic performance of an InAlGaAs/InAlAs superlattice avalanche photodiode (SLAPD) as an ultra-low light detecting device for photoncounting method in infra-red region. The results are mainly summarized as follows.1) The SLAPD's were cooled by a liquid-nitrogen cooling system and operated at 85 K.2) As the decrease of the dark current noise of the thin-layr SLAPD was remarkably seen in the low bias voltage condition, the main component of the noise was caused from the thermally excited carriers. The breakdown voltage of the SLAPD moved to lower one by the cooling. 3) Dark current noise of the thick-layr SLAPD was successively reduced to 10-11 A at around the breakdown voltage, on the other hand that of the thin-layr SLAPD was 10-9 A.The noise was supposed the tunneling dark current. It was shown that the superlattice multiplication layr was effective to control the excess noise coefficient and the thickened layr was also effective to suppress the tunneling dark current. This SLAPD could be used in optical power of 10-6 W to 10-12 W.4)Photoncounting by using the thick-layr SLAPD was tried, but the pulse height distribution of the signal did not show a clear difference between the light signal pulse and the noise pulse. The dark current noise caused from the microplasma was still left.These results shows that the SLAPDs with the thicker superlattice layr have a potential for the photoncounting device in infra-red region. The development of the design and fabrication technique for such devices is strongly requested.

本研究的目的是研究InAlGaAs/InAlAs超晶格雪崩光电二极管作为用于红外光计数法的超弱光探测器件的特性。主要研究结果如下：1)采用液氮冷却系统对激光器进行冷却，工作温度为85K。2)在低偏压条件下，薄层激光器暗电流噪声显著降低，噪声的主要来源是热激励载流子。随着温度的降低，激光器的击穿电压向低电压方向移动。3)在击穿电压附近，厚层器件的暗电流噪声依次降低到10-11A，而薄层器件的暗电流噪声依次降低到10-9A，并推测为隧道暗电流。结果表明，超晶格倍增层R能有效地控制超额噪声系数，增厚的R层也能有效地抑制隧穿暗电流。该激光二极管可用于10~(-6)W~10~(-12)W的光功率。4)尝试用厚层激光二极管进行光子计数，但光信号脉冲和噪声脉冲的脉冲高度分布没有明显的差别。微等离子体产生的暗电流噪声仍然存在，这表明具有较厚超晶格层的SLAPD具有在红外区域用于光计数器件的潜力。对此类器件的设计和制造技术的发展提出了强烈要求。