Author Affiliations
1Key Laboratory of Infrared Imaging Materials and Detectors, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200083, China2School of Information Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, Chinashow less
Fig. 1. (a) Relationship between impact ionization coefficient ratio and Cd component x of HgCdTe materials; (b) Comparison of excess noise factor F for various APD materials
Fig. 2. Diagram layout of photon counting system
Fig. 3. (a) Diagram of HgCdTe SAM-APD structure; (b) Epitaxial structure of HgCdTe SAM-APD grown by molecular-beam epitaxy
Fig. 4. HgCdTe APD 4×4 photon counting sensor chip assembly
Fig. 5. (a) Multiple acquisitions showing detection of 0, 1 and 2 photons with average illumination of one photon; (b) Single photon acquisition with double pulses closely spaced time (<6 ns) without afterpulsing observed
Fig. 6. Cross section and top view of HDVIP HgCdTe APD structure
Fig. 7. 2×8 linear middle wave HgCdTe APD photon counting focal plane array
Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of planar PIN HgCdTe APD structure
Fig. 9. HgCdTe e-APD gain curves measured at T=80 K for λc=2.9 μm to 5.3 μm
Fig. 10. Probability distributions for detecting 1 and 2 photons events and uniformly distributed dark current generation in the multi-plication layer
Fig. 11. Illustration of a fast response HgCdTe APD architecture with separate absorption and multiplicaiton layer, the corresponding band gap variation
Fig. 12. (a) Structure schematic and (b) band structure of MOVPE heterostructure HgCdTe APD array
Fig. 13. C-RED ONE camera
Fig. 14. Installation of C-RED ONE at MIRC optics
Fig. 15. Performances of MWIR HgCdTe APD at 80 K. （a） Photocurrent, dark current and gain; (b) Variation of excess noise factor F with gain M; (c) Noise equivalent photon (NEPh) compared with DRS HgCdTe APD detectors; (d) Bandwidth
Fig. 16. Imaging demonstration of a HgCdTe APD focal plane under different gains with Tint=20 μs. （a） M=1; （b） M=19
| Parameters | Linear mode | Geiger mode | | 备注：(1) 由于后脉冲的捕获和再发射大量载流子导致的死时间限制了脉冲间隔分辨率。
(2) 多脉冲盖革统计能达到10 cm的距离分辨率。
(3) 通过多次事件符合过滤可以区分倍增的光子信号和倍增的体暗电流。
| | Able to sense single photon event | Yes | Yes | | Single event dynamic range | >1000∶1 | 1 photon same as 2 or 1000 | | APD gain | >60 | 105-106 | | ROIC front end | High gain, low noise | Low gain, high noise | | Repetitive pulse resolution | 1-2 ns | 100-1000 ns(1) | | Optical crosstalk | Minimal | Significant radiative recombination of a large number of carriers | | Range resolution (pulse-to-pulse) | ~20 cm | 1500-15000 cm(2) | | Discriminate gained signal from ungained surface dark current | Yes, by thresholding | Yes, by thresholding | | Discriminate gained signal from gained radiation (γ, p)
| Yes, by amplitude | No, Can’t discriminate with single pulses(3) | | Discriminate gained “few” photon signal from gained bulk Idark | Yes, by amplitude | No, can’t discriminate with single pulses returns(3) | | Photon detection efficiency | Optical QE>90% | Geiger efficiency ~30%– 50% |
|
Table 1. Comparison of linear and Geiger mode technology
| Parameters | Results | | Response waveband | 1.55 μm | | Operating voltages | <20 V | | Operating temperature | 80-180 K or greater | | Maximum gain | 200-350 | | Dark count rate (DCR) (counts/s) at M>100
| <104（80-160 K）
, <10 5 （180 K）
| | Surface dark current | <10−13A
| | Max reset time | 10 ms | | Operability | >90% | | Probability of detection | >95% | | False alarm rate | <1% |
|
Table 2. Performance of HgCdTe APD 4×4 photon counting sensor chip assembly
| Parameters | Array in 2010 | Two arrays in 2013 | | A8327-8-2 | A8327-14-1 | | P-type doping | VHg | Cu+VHg | VHg | | Cd composition | 0.33 | 0.33 | 0.33 | | Gain | 470@
13 V
| 1910@12.9 V | 1100@12.9 V | | Maximum Photon Detection Efficiency(PDE) | 50%@14 V | 72%@12.9 V | 66%@12.9 V | | FER@PDE=50% | >1 MHz | 151 kHz | 158 kHz | | Mean single photon SNR | 13.7 | 21.9 | 12.3 | | Excess noise factor, F | 1.3-1.4 | 1.25 | 1.20 | | Measured RMS jitter | 632 ps | 2370 ps | 1570 ps | | Minimum time between events | 8 ns | No measured | 9 ns |
|
Table 3. Comparison of performance of 2×8 linear HgCdTe APDs photon counting arrays in 2010 and 2013
| Parameters | SWIR | MWIR | | Quantum efficiency (QE) | 60%-80% | | Max gain | 2 000 | 13000 | | Bias at M=100
| 12-14 V | 7-10 V | | F | 1.1-1.4 | | QE to F ratios
| 40%-70% | | Typical response time | 0.5-20 ns | | Maximum gain-bandwidth product | 2.1 THz |
|
Table 4. Typical performance of SWIR and MWIR Hg-CdTe APDs at T= 80 K
| Parameters | Objetive | | Response waveband | 0.3-3 μm | | F | 1.2 | | Quantum efficiency (QE) | 90% | | Temporal resolution | 5 ns-10 μs | | Photon noise limited dynamic range | 60 dB | | Detector noise | <1 photon | | Minimum detected photon noise limited signal | <1 photon |
|
Table 5. HgCdTe APD performance index for space lidar application
| Parameters | Results | | Maximum frame frequency | 3500 fps | | Mean dark + readout noise at 3500 fps and
Gain~30
| < 1 e− | | Quantization | 16 bit | | Operating temperature | 80 K | | Peak quantum efficiency from 0.8 μm to 2.5 μm | > 70% | | Operability | 99.30% | | Image full well capacity at gain 1, 3500 fps | 50000 e− | | F | < 1.25 |
|
Table 6. C- RED ONE camera performances
| Parameters | Raytheon | DRS | CEA/TETI | Leonardo | SITP | KIP | | Able to sense single photon event | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | | APD structure | SAM | HDVIP | PIN | SAM | PIN | PIN | | Epitaxial technique | MBE | LPE | MBE/LPE | MOVPE | LPE | LPE | | Cut-off wavelength @77 K | 1.55 μm at absorption region, 1.27 μm at gain region | 4.3 μm | 2.5-5.3 μm | 2.5 μm at absorption region, 3.5 μm at gain region | 4.7-5.2 μm | 4.6 μm | | Multiplication mechanism | Hole multiplication | Electron multiplication | Electron multiplication | Electron multiplication | Electron multiplication | Electron multiplication | | Maximum gain | 350 | 6100 | 2 000 for SW
13000 for MW
| 66@14.5 V | >1000 | >1000 | | F | F~1
| 1.2 | 1.1-1.4 | < 1.25 | <1.5@M<400
| <1.5@<8.5 V | | Bandwidth (BW) | 1-3 GHz of ROIC BW | No given | Max BW 10 GHz@M=1 300 K
| No given, low BW | 300-600 MHz | No reported | | Dark count rate (DCR) | <10 kHz（80-160 K）;
<100 kHz （180 K）
| <20 kHz | 100 kHz for SW
1 MHz for MW
| 21 Hz/pixel | Calculated by dark current: 100 kHz-3 GHz | Calculated by dark current: 560 kHz-170 MHz | | Photon detection efficiency (PDE) | >95% | 72% | ~90% | >90% | No reported | No reported | | Minimum time between events | <6 ns | 8 ns | 5 ns-10 μs | 125 μs | No reported | No reported |
|
Table 7. Performances of HgCdTe APD for photon-counting application from different research institutes
