Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2022 Apr 1;93(4):043103. doi: 10.1063/5.0087341.
At the present time, Single Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs) are the enabling devices in many applications, ranging from medical imaging to laser ranging and from remote sensing to quantum key distribution. Even though they belong to different scientific domains, these applications share the need for a detector capable of attaining high count rates possibly without trading it off with other key detector's features, such as afterpulsing probability, photon detection efficiency, and dark counts. In this work, we present the characterization of a fast integrated active quenching circuit capable of driving high-performance external custom-technology SPADs for single photon detection in the visible wavelength range. Combining the prompt intervention of the electronic circuitry and the performance of a custom-technology SPAD, we attained count rates up to 250 MCps while keeping the afterpulsing probability within 2%.
目前，单光子雪崩二极管（SPAD）是许多应用中的关键器件，从医学成像到激光测距，从遥感到量子密钥分发，应用广泛。尽管它们属于不同的科学领域，但这些应用都需要一个能够实现高计数率的探测器，而不会牺牲其他关键探测器的特性，如后脉冲概率、光子探测效率和暗计数。在这项工作中，我们展示了一种快速集成的有源猝灭电路的特性，该电路能够驱动高性能的外部定制技术 SPAD，用于可见光波长范围内的单光子探测。通过电子电路的及时干预和定制技术 SPAD 的性能，我们实现了高达 250 MCps 的计数率，同时将后脉冲概率保持在 2%以内。
