Effect of dead space on avalanche speed [APDs]

Author

Ng, J.S. ; Tan, C.H. ; Ng, B.K. ; Hambleton, P.J. ; David, J.P.R. ; Rees, G.J. ; You, A.H. ; Ong, D.S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. & Electr. Eng., Univ. of Sheffield, UK

Volume

49

Issue

4

fYear

2002

fDate

4/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

544

Lastpage

549

Abstract

The effects of dead space (the minimum distance travelled by a carrier before acquiring enough energy to impact ionize) on the current impulse response and bandwidth of an avalanche multiplication process are obtained from a numerical model that maintains a constant carrier velocity but allows for a random distribution of impact ionization path lengths. The results show that the main mechanism responsible for the increase in response time with dead space is the increase in the number of carrier groups, which qualitatively describes the length of multiplication chains. When the dead space is negligible, the bandwidth follows the behavior predicted by Emmons but decreases as dead space increases

Keywords

avalanche breakdown; avalanche photodiodes; frequency response; impact ionisation; semiconductor device models; avalanche multiplication process; avalanche photodiodes; avalanche speed; bandwidth; carrier groups; constant carrier velocity; current impulse response; dead space; frequency response; impact ionization; multiplication chains; numerical model; path lengths; response time; Avalanche photodiodes; Bandwidth; Delay; Frequency response; Impact ionization; Numerical models; Optical fiber communication; Optical noise; Photodetectors; Space exploration;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/16.992860

Filename

992860