Title :
Room-Temperature Single-Photon Detector Based on InGaAs/InP Avalanche Photodiode With Multichannel Counting Ability
Author :
Liang, Yan ; Jian, Yi ; Chen, Xiuliang ; Wu, Guang ; Wu, E. ; Zeng, Heping
Author_Institution :
State Key Lab. of Precision Spectrosc., East China Normal Univ., Shanghai, China
Abstract :
Using a capacitance balancing circuit, we achieved infrared single-photon detection based on an InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode (APD) with a low dark count rate and negligible afterpulse effect at room temperature of 290 K. Detection efficiency of 9.80% was attained with the dark count rate of 6.62 × 10-4 per gate, showing that the detector could work efficiently even at room temperature without Peltier cooling. Moreover, the detector was operated in an arbitrary gated mode, meaning that more than one gating pulse was applied on the APD during one period. The single-photon detector working in this mode was capable of multichannel photon counting for practical quantum key distribution.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; avalanche photodiodes; capacitance; gallium arsenide; indium compounds; photodetectors; photon counting; quantum cryptography; APD; InGaAs-InP; arbitrary gated mode; avalanche photodiode; capacitance balancing circuit; dark count rate; detection efficiency; multichannel counting ability; quantum key distribution; single-photon detector; temperature 290 K; Capacitance; Detectors; Indium gallium arsenide; Indium phosphide; Logic gates; Noise; Photonics; Avalanche photodiode (APD); single-photon detection;
Journal_Title :
Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LPT.2010.2092756
