Room temperature operation of germanium-silicon single-photon avalanche diode

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Na, Neil; Lu, Yen-Cheng; Liu, Yu-Hsuan; Chen, Po-Wei; Lai, Ying-Chen; Lin, You-Ru; Lin, Chung-Chih; Shia, Tim; Cheng, Chih-Hao; Chen, Shu-Lu
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-3965
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07076-x
• 发表日期: 2024-03-14
• 页码: 295-+
• 关键词: ge; si; photodetector; photodiodes; detectors; DESIGN; apd

摘要

The ability to detect single photons has led to the advancement of numerous research fields(1-11). Although various types of single-photon detector have been developed(12), because of two main factors-that is, (1) the need for operating at cryogenic temperature(13,14) and (2) the incompatibility with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication processes(15,16)-so far, to our knowledge, only Si-based single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD)(17,18) has gained mainstream success and has been used in consumer electronics. With the growing demand to shift the operation wavelength from near-infrared to short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) for better safety and performance(19-21), an alternative solution is required because Si has negligible optical absorption for wavelengths beyond 1 mu m. Here we report a CMOS-compatible, high-performing germanium-silicon SPAD operated at room temperature, featuring a noise-equivalent power improvement over the previous Ge-based SPADs(22-28) by 2-3.5 orders of magnitude. Key parameters such as dark count rate, single-photon detection probability at 1,310nm, timing jitter, after-pulsing characteristic time and after-pulsing probability are, respectively, measured as 19kHz mu m(-2), 12%, 188ps, similar to 90ns and <1%, with a low breakdown voltage of 10.26V and a small excess bias of 0.75V. Three-dimensional point-cloud images are captured with direct time-of-flight technique as proof of concept. This work paves the way towards using single-photon-sensitive SWIR sensors, imagers and photonic integrated circuits in everyday life.