Understanding dark current in pixels of silicon

photomultipliers
G. Valvo, G. Condorelli, B. Carbone, D.N. Sanfilippo
and G. Fallica

R. Pagano, S. Lombardo and S. Libertino

CNR-IMM
Strada VIII Zona Industriale, 5, 95121, Catania, Italy
roberto.pagano@imm.cnr.it

IMS-R&D STMicroelectronics,
Stradale Primosole, 50 95121 Catania, ITALY

Abstract Silicon photomultipliers are nowadays considered a

promising alternative to conventional vacuum tube
photomultipliers. The physical mechanisms operating in the
device need to be fully explored and modeled to understand the
device operational limits and possibilities. In this work we study
the dark current behavior of the pixels forming the Si
photomultiplier as a function of the applied overvoltage and
operation temperature. The data are well modeled by assuming
that dark current is caused by current pulses triggered by events
of diffusion of single minority carriers (mostly electrons)
injected from the boundaries of the active area depletion layer
(dominating at temperatures above 0C) and by thermal
emission of carriers from Shockley-Read-Hall defects in the
depletion layer (dominating at temperatures below 0C).

I.

INTRODUCTION

Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) are a very promising

alternative to conventional photomultipliers (PM) thanks to
some interesting characteristics: they are insensitive to
magnetic fields, hence can be used in environments with high
fields; their operation voltage is far lower, and they ensure
better robustness and reliability than PM; they are much
cheaper than their traditional counterpart [1-2].
SiPM structure consists in a parallel array of equal single
pixels, each one made of a silicon p-n junction avalanche
photodetector with an integrated resistor. The SiPM is biased
above the breakdown voltage, that is, each pixel is operated in
Geiger mode, above the breakdown voltage (BV) of the p-n
junction. The junction is carefully doped in order to have
breakdown only in the central active area of the pixel, used for
the photon detection, and by the avalanche mechanism (not by
Zener). To understand the photon detection concept, let us
assume to bias such junction above breakdown with a fast
voltage step. In this condition, if no carrier is present in the
depletion region the junction is highly sensitive to the
detection of single photons. In fact, if the photon is absorbed
by creating an electron-hole pair, both carriers will start to
drift in the high field region of the depletion layer and, being
the voltage above breakdown, this drift will result with a
100% probability in the impact generation of a second e-h
pair, and so on, up to the build-up of the junction avalanche.

978-1-4244-6661-0/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

The avalanche is limited by the buildup of a limiting space

charge in the depletion layer which decreases the field [3].
Moreover, since the photodector has a resistor in series, when
the avalanche current flows through the resistor, the voltage
applied to the junction drops below BV. It quenches the
avalanche, the current decreases to zero, and the voltage
across the p-n junction increases again above BV. The pixel is
ready again to detect the arrival of a new photon. Clearly, all
the transients recorded are the result of both capacitive effects
and (generally faster) avalanche build-up characteristic times.
Such ideal picture is strongly modified by the occurrence
of phenomena leading to dark current, generally attributed to
generation effects from Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) defects in
the depletion layer, afterpulsing effects, and diffusion of
carriers from the quasi-neutral boundaries of the p-n junction
[4].
The purpose of this work is to understand the behavior of
dark current in single pixels of SiPMs, by separately taking
into account the contribution given by the avalanche build-up
and quenching, and the effect of generation / diffusion of
carriers in the depletion layer in order to provide a detailed
understanding of the current-voltage (IV) curves. We propose
a physical model of the I-V above breakdown voltage able to
reproduce the voltage and temperature dependence of the
current for the studied devices.

II.

DEVICE STRUCTURE

Devices were realized by STMicroelectronics on silicon

epitaxial n-type wafers and formed from planar microcells. An
implanted p-layer forms an enrichment region which defines
both the active area and the breakdown voltage (BV) of the
junction. The anode is contacted by sinkers created around the
photodiode active area by means of a high-dose boron
implantation. The cathode is given by the diffusion of arsenic
from a doped in-situ thin polysilicon layer deposited on the
top of the structure. The quenching resistor, made from lowdoped polysilicon, is integrated on the cathode of the cell
itself. Thin optical trenches filled with oxide and metal
surround the pixel active area in order to reduce electro-optical

265

coupling effects (crosstalk) between adjacent microcells. A

double-layer antireflective coating made of silicon oxide and
silicon nitride enhances the spectral response of the device in
the blue and near ultraviolet wavelength ranges. The pixels
have a square geometry with an active area side of 40x40 m2
[5]. Figure 1 shows a schematic drawing of the pixel, with the
structure of the p-n junction. The depletion region relevant for
photon detection is the one below the enrichment layer, where
the field is higher, being larger the doping level.
III.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The current-voltage (I-V) curves of single cell reverse

biased in the region 24V 36V, in dark, as a function of the
device temperature, from -25C to 65C are reported in Fig.
2. Breakdown is clearly visible at voltages of 27-29 V, with
the well known increase of the BV with the temperature.
Though the measurements show steady-state I-V curves,
the time resolved analysis of the current at the oscilloscope at
a fixed bias above BV reveals that the time averaged
breakdown current of Fig. 2 is indeed a random sequence of
current spikes. Fig. 3 shows such spikes in a semilog time
scale at various bias levels at room temperature.
Each I-t curve is indeed the average of 1000 traces. It is
evident that after an initial spike the current has an
exponential decrease with time, with the same characteristic
time as the voltage level is changed. These dark counts are
attributed to generation and / or diffusion from quasi neutral
boundaries of a single free carrier which initiate the
avalanche in a short time scale.
The current, however, does not go immediately to zero
since there is the displacement current due to diode
capacitance recharge to the pristine voltage level. In such a
picture the integrated current signal, usually referred to as
gain, is approximately equal to:

Q 2C
G= =
(VPOL " BV )
q
q

Figure 1. Schematic of SiPM cell.

bias, and q the elementary charge. The factor 2 is needed

since we detect both the initial current spike due to avalanche
build-up and quenching, followed by the recharge of the
diode effective capacitance. According to this picture, the
time constant of the exponential I vs. t trace after the initial
current spike should simply be equal to C=RquenchC, where
Rquench is the value of the quenching resistance. Such
interpretation is confirmed by the excellent agreement
between the experimental time constants and the C values.
The agreement is also found when temperature is changed. In
such case Rquench varies because of the temperature
dependence of the resistance value of the integrated resistor
[6], but still the measured time constants are perfectly
consistent with the C values.
According to this picture the measured DC current (Fig.
2) can then simply evaluated as:

~
I (V , T ) = qG (V , T )! f DC (V , T )! Ad

(2)

(1)

where C is the effective pixel capacitance, VPOL the applied

Figure 2. I-V curves in reverse voltage as a function of the device

temperature from -25C (white square) up to 65 C (magenta circles).

where fDC is the frequency of dark events per unit area,

i.e., events of generation and / or diffusion from quasi neutral
boundaries of single free carriers into the active detection
volume of the photodetector, and Ad is the corresponding
! detection area. G is the product of G of Eq. (1) times the
probability Pa that an injected free carrier actually initiates
the avalanche.
The gain G can be evaluated as the integral of signals
!
such as those of Fig. 3 from 0 to 3-4 times C. In particular
Fig. 4 reports the measured gain evaluated by integration
from 0 to 160 ns as a function of voltage for a number of
temperatures. In the same figure we also report the theoretical
gain 2C(V-BV)/q evaluated at a single temperature (-25C).
Only one model curve is calculated for clarity, and the others
corresponding to the higher temperatures are simply obtained
by shifting the first one to the right because of the
temperature dependence of BV.

266

Figure 3. Dark Current as a function of time for biases ranging from 30V (lowest line) up to 34 V (highest line) acquired at room temperature.

Figure 4. Gain as a function of voltage. The dashed line is the theoretical

gain evaluated at -25C.

We first note that the model is quite close to the data

(curve at -25 C) but the experimental curve is non linear, with
an approximately quadratic trend with voltage. The superlinear behavior is also observed at higher temperatures,
!
without any particular change of trend, except for the well
known
shift of BV as temperature increases.
The non linear behavior of gain is an important feature of
SiPMs and we have investigated this issue in further detail. In
particular we have measured the gain by an alternative,
independent method, hereafter proposed. From Eq. (2) it is
easy to estimate the photodetector current under illumination
Ilight. In fact one expects that:

the G values with those of G and the linear model of Eq. (1).
It is evident a surprisingly good match between G and G at
high voltage, while a small difference is observed at low
voltages.
We now proceed in our analysis by discussing the dark
! generating
count frequency fDC. Ideally with no SRH center
free carriers in the detection volume, fDC should at least be
equal to the frequency of free carrier injection from the quasineutral boundaries, given by the well known expression:

I l ight = q "G " fDC + QE " fphoton " Ad #

# q "G "QE " fphoton " Ad

(3)

where fPhot is the photon flux incident on the pixel and QE is

the corresponding external quantum efficiency. If we are in a
!
condition
where fPhot >> fDC, G can be evaluated as:

I Light
G=
.
f photon " QE " Ad

n 2D
fDIF = i n =
N a Ln

Dn n i 2
#
" n Na

(5)

where ni is intrinsic carrier concentration, Na is the dopant

concentration at the depletion layer boundary of the
! Dn is the electron diffusivity and Ln is the
enrichment,
diffusion length.

(4)

As already underlined G in Eqs. (2)-(4) is the product of G

(Eq.(1)) times Pa, so the two parameters coincide only if Pa is
!
one, i.e., 100% probability to trigger the avalanche.
Figure 5 reports an example of I-V characteristics of a
SiPM pixel under illumination with laser light at 659 nm at
flux levels ranging from 2.2 nW/cm2 up to 22 W/cm2.
Above BV the pixel operates linearly up to about 200
nW/cm2, and a tendency to signal saturation is evident above
such intensity. The saturation above 200 nW/cm2 is well
explained by dead time effects, of the order of 200 ns as
shown in Fig. 3.
Data such as those of Fig. 5 allow to evaluate G by using
Eq. (4). By assuming a QE value of 0.15 at the 659 nm laser
wavelength [7] we determine G and the results are shown in
Fig. 6. In particular the figure shows the comparison between

Figure 5. IV characteristics in reverse voltage in dark (dark) and under

illumination from 2.2 nW/cm2 (green) to 22 W/cm2 (blue)

267

If we also assume the presence of defects, the related

emission frequency is given by the well known SRH
expression:

& E -E )
fTH = N dif "W " # n " $ n "T 2 "exp(% c T +
'
kT *

(6)

where Ndif is the defect concentration, W the depletion layer

width, n an universal constant, n the defect cross-section, EC!T the defect ionization energy, T the temperature, and k the
E
Boltzmann constant.
Figure 7 shows the comparison between the experimental
dark I-V characteristics and the model, by assuming the G
values of Fig. 6. The agreement between data and model is
extremely good. We fit the data both as a function of voltage
and as a function of temperature by assuming the well known
relationship between carrier diffusivity and mobility, and
Ln = 10 m, n=1100 cm2/Vs, and Na= 1.5e16 cm-3 in Eq. (5),
while for thermal diffusion (Eq. (6)) we have assumed
Ndif = 1e9 cm-3, EC-ET = 0.54 eV, n = 1.6e-15 cm2, with the
universal constant n = 1.78e21 cm-2s-2K-2 as reported in [8].
The remarkable agreement between data and model is
obtained by assuming quite reasonable values of the fit
parameters, and this suggests that the present model catches
quite well the behavior of the device. We also note that these
devices present a dark current only limited by carrier diffusion
already at quite low temperatures, essentially almost at 0 C,
indicating a remarkably low SRH defect concentration (of the
order of 1e9 cm-3).

Figure 7. Comparison of the experimental I-V curves (circle) in reverse

voltage and the physical model as (lines) a function of the device temperature
from -25C (white) up to 65 C (magenta)

STMicroelectronics. The model fits nicely the data and

demonstrates that state-of-the-art SiPM can have at room
temperature a dark current rate limited only by carrier
diffusion.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CNR authors gratefully acknowledge partial grant support
by IMS R&D, STMicroelectronics.
REFERENCES
[1]

IV.

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper we have reported on the realization of Silicon

Photomultipliers, we have described a physical model on the
dark count rate of SiPM single pixels, and we have compared
this model to experimental data taken on SiPM realized by

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

Figure 6. Gain as a function of voltage for temperatures from

-25C up to 65C: dots are data reported in Fig.4, lines the gain determined
from eq. (4) as described in text.. The results are compared with the model of
eq. (1)

[8]

268

G. Bondarenko, B. Dolgoshein, V. Golovin, Ilyin, R. Klanner, E.

Popova, Limited Geiger-mode silicon photodiode with very high
gain, Nucl. Phys. B Proc. Suppl., vol.61 B, 1998, pp. 347-352.
N. Otte, B. Dolgoshein, J. Hose, S. Kleminin, E. Lorentz, R. Mirzoyan,
E. Popova, M. Teshina, The Potential of SiPM as Photo Detector in
Astropaticle Physics Experiments like MAGIC and EUSO, Nucl.
Phys. B Proc. Suppl.,vol 150, 2006, pp. 144-149.
S. Cova, M. Ghioni, A. Lacaita, C. Samori, F. Zappa, Avalanche
photodiodes and quenching circuits for single photon detection, Appl.
Opt., vol 35, 1996, pp. 19561976.
E. Sciacca, A.C. Giudice, D. Sanfilippo, F. Zappa, S. Lombardo, R.
Cosentino, C. Di Franco, M. Ghioni, G. Fallica, G. Bonanno, S. Cova,
E. Rimini, Silicon Planar Technology for Single-Photon Optical
Detectors, IEEE Trans. on Elect. Dev., vol 50, 2003, pp. 918-925.
M. Mazzillo, G. Condorelli, D. Sanfilippo, G. Valvo, B. Carbone, G.
Fallica, S. Billotta, M. Belluso, G. Bonanno, L. Cosentino, A.
Pappalardo, P. Finocchiaro, Silicon Photomultiplier Technology at
STMicroelectronics IEEE Trans. on Nucl. Sci., vol 56, 2009, pp.
2434-2442.
R. Pagano, S. Libertino, G. Valvo, G. Condorelli, B. Carbone, A. Piana,
M. Mazzillo, D. N.Sanfilippo, P.G. Fallica, G. Falci, S. Lombardo,
Dark Count in Single Photon Avalanche Si Detectors, in Optical
Components and Materials VII, ed. by S. Jiang, M.J.F. Digonnet, J.W.
Glesener, J.C. Dries, Proc. of SPIE vol. 7598, 2010, pp. 75980Z.
M. Mazzillo,G. Condorelli,A. Piazza,D. Sanfilippo,G. Valvo,B.
Carbone,G. Fallica,S. Billotta,M. Belluso,G. Bonanno, A. Pappalardo,
L. Cosentino, P. Finocchiaro, Single-photon avalanche photodiodes
with integrated quenching resistor, Nucl. Instr. & Met. In Phys. Res.,
vol. 591, pp 367-373, 2008.
K. Schroder, Semiconductor Material and Device Characterization,3rd
ed.,Wiley-Interscience,2006,pp 262.