Experimental observation of the dependence of avalanche noise on carrier ionization coefficients

McIntyre has predicted that avalanche noise is strongly dependent on the ionization coefficients of the carriers initiating the avalanche process. Carriers with lower ionization coefficient produce higher avalanche noise. The experimental results described here confirm the theoretical prediction that in silicon, where the ionization coefficient of holes is an order of magnitude smaller than the ionization coefficient of electrons, the avalanche noise generated by the hole current can be as much as two orders of magnitude larger than the avalanche noise generated by electron current.