GHz InGaAs/InP Single-Photon Detection with Ultrashort Gates

本文基于InGaAs/InP雪崩光电二极管设计了1-GHz门控盖革模式单光子探测器。通过电容平衡技术与低通滤波相结合的方案实现了雪崩信号的有效提取，并使探测器的重复频率可在较大范围内连续调节。此外，超短门控脉冲被用于控制雪崩光电二极管的偏置电压，进一步提高了探测器性能。最终实现的探测效率为11.0%，暗计数率为7.0 × 10−7/门，后脉冲概率为4.7%。该GHz单光子探测器的时间抖动测量值约为94 ps，使其非常适用于高速量子密钥分发和激光测距系统。A single-photon detector was demonstrated with InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode operated in 1-GHz gated Geiger mode. The capacitance-balancing technique was combined with low-pass filtering to achieve the valid extraction of the avalanche signal. With this method, the repetition frequency of this detector could be continuously tuned on a large scale. Moreover, ultrashort gates were employed to control the bias voltage of the avalanche photodiode, further improving the performance of the detector. Detection efficiency of 11.0% was finally attained with dark count rate of 7.0 × 10−7/gate and afterpulse probability of 4.7%. Besides that, the timing jitter of this GHz single-photon detector was measured to be ~94 ps, making it quite suitable for high-speed quantum key distribution and laser ranging systems.