Abstract

We report the performance of a germanium quad-cell, composed of four avalanche photodiodes operated in the photon-counting regime, biased above the breakdown voltage. Each pixel detects a single photon in the wavelength range 1–1.5 μm with ~10% quantum efficiency and measures the photon arrival time with a time resolution of 100 ps. By adopting a multiplexed gating of the avalanche photodiodes we avoided the optical cross talk among pixels, thus achieving a noise-equivalent power of 3 × 10⁻¹⁵ W/Hz^1/2 for each pixel and demonstrating the tracking capabilities of such a detector.

© 1996 Optical Society of America

Single-photon detection beyond 1 μm: performance of commercially available InGaAs/InP detectors

A. Lacaita, F. Zappa, S. Cova, and P. Lovati
Appl. Opt. 35(16) 2986-2996 (1996)

Large-aperture germanium detector package for picosecond photon counting in the 0.5–1.6-mm range

I. Prochazka, K. Hamal, B. Greene, and H. Kunimori
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Nanosecond single-photon timing with InGaAs/InP photodiodes

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Subnanosecond single-photon timing with commercially available germanium photodiodes

A. Lacaita, S. Cova, F. Zappa, and P. A. Francese
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Single-photon detection beyond 1 μm: performance of commercially available germanium photodiodes

A. Lacaita, P. A. Francese, F. Zappa, and S. Cova
Appl. Opt. 33(30) 6902-6918 (1994)