APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 95, 131118 !

2009"

Photon-number resolving performance of the InGaAs/InP avalanche

photodiode with short gates
Xiuliang Chen, E Wu, Lilin Xu, Yan Liang, Guang Wu,a! and Heping Zenga!
State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
!Received 20 May 2009; accepted 14 September 2009; published online 2 October 2009"
By using a self-differencing circuit to achieve efficient spike cancellation for the near-infrared
single-photon detector based on InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode, we verified that shortening the
gate duration enforced the detection efficiency to saturate at an increased voltage, while increasing
the avalanche gain favored the discrimination of the avalanche signals caused by different
photon-number states. Photon-number resolving detection was realized by measuring the weak
current at the avalanche built-up. The photon-number resolving performance could be improved by
shortening the gating pulse duration. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.
#doi:10.1063/1.3242380$

Avalanche photodiode !APD" is widely used in ultrasen-
sitive detection of light for various applications such as
quantum information processing,1,2 optical time-domain
reflectometry,3 and Raman spectroscopy.4 InGaAs/InP APDs
typically work in the gated Geiger mode with a reverse bias
above the breakdown voltage for the single-photon counting
detection in the infrared regime.5,6 A photon would excite a
single photocarrier followed by the avalanche multiplication
to cause a detectable macroscopic current pulse. Usually, in
order to obtain a high detection efficiency !!25%", the ava-
lanche gain of the APD typically reaches its avalanche gain
saturation. Nevertheless, the amplification of a second pho-
toexcited carrier makes no addition to the final avalanche
signal. As a result, photon-number resolving !PNR" measure-
ment is disabled in conventional APD-based single-photon
detectors. Temporal or spatial multiplexing techniques are
introduced by virtue of multiphoton splitting the incident
pulses into multiple detectors to register individual photon
clicks for PNR.7–9 Recently, a self-differencing method has
been invented to suppress the capacitive response of APD,
thus enabling a single APD to resolve the number of incident
photons.10,11 By measuring the avalanche current before the
APD became saturated, the incident photon number could be
distinguished up to four according to the avalanche peak
voltage distribution.11
In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate that the
PNR performance of the APD could be much improved by
using self-differencing spike cancellation as the repetitive
was fixed at 200 MHz with the pulse duration varied from
500 to 700 ps. The pulsed laser diode was synchronously
triggered at 1/200 of the gating frequency. The self-
differencing circuit suppressed the spike signal by subtract-
ing the identical signal in the APD response of the two suc-
cessive gating cycles.10,12 At the output of the circuit, the
spike signal was suppressed and only the avalanche signal
was extracted and captured by an oscilloscope !2.5 GHz,
Tektronix" as shown in the inset of Fig. 1.
We verified the detection efficiency of the detector with
different gating pulse durations of 500, 600, and 700 ps by
changing the voltage applied on the APD at −40 ° C. The
applied voltage on the APD consisted of the reversed bias
voltage and gating pulse peak voltage. Note that the 19 ps
photon pulse was coincidence gated within the gating pulse
used in the experiment. As the gating pulse duration became
shorter, the probability of a photoexcited hole to trigger an
avalanche signal was decreased, leading to a decrease in the
detection efficiency at the same applied voltage as shown in
Fig. 2. This presents a clear evidence that a decrease in the
gate duration could enforce the detection efficiency satura-
tion at an increased voltage applied on the APD.
To investigate the APD response on an individual inci-
dent photon, we illuminated the APD while fixing the gating
pulse duration at 700 ps but altered the voltage applied on
the APD to change the avalanche gain. The average detected
0.1 Bias
(a)
Signal Amplitude (V)

gating pulse was shortened in duration. With a short gating

0.0
pulse, the detection efficiency could be maintained with a Gating Pulses
-0.1 APD
low avalanche gain. A short gating pulse also resulted in an 0.1
improved PNR of the avalanche signal, which may enhance (b) Photon
an APD to register more photons. 0.0
Avalanche 50 Ω
Figure 1 shows the schematic of the experimental setup. -0.1 Laser Pulses
A 1.55 "m pulsed laser diode with the repetition rate of 1 40 45 50 55 60

MHz and pulse duration of 19 ps was attenuated to contain a Time (ns) GND
few photons per pulse on average, which was coupled into Delay
the APD fiber pigtail as the photon source. The InGaAs/InP
APD !JDSU EXT 40-X00408052–005" was operated in the Oscilloscope Amplifier Power Combiner Power Splitter
gated Geiger mode. The repetition rate of the gating pulse
FIG. 1. !Color online" Experimental setup of the PNR detection with the
InGaAs/InP APD based on the self-differencing spike-cancellation tech-
a"
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic ad- nique. Inset: !a" APD response to the gating pulse and !b" avalanche signal
dresses: gwu@phy.ecnu.edu.cn and hpzeng@phy.ecnu.edu.cn. at the output of the self-differencing circuit.

0003-6951/2009/95"13!/131118/3/$25.00 95, 131118-1 © 2009 American Institute of Physics

131118-2 Chen et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 131118 "2009!

TABLE I. Parameters used in curve fitting with different applied voltage

!700 ps gate".

Average
Applied Standard voltage of Voltage
voltage deviation 1-photon-number separation Ratio
!V" !mV" !mV" !mV" !%"

57.0 3.0 12.0 5.6 53.6

57.2 3.4 13.4 7.6 44.7
57.4 3.8 14.8 9.2 41.3

distribution of the n-photon-number state. The red solid line

in Fig. 3!a" is the simulation of 0-photon excited avalanche
signal, corresponding to periods in which there was no ava-
lanche but only “background noise,” and the green and pink
solid lines present the states of peak voltage for 1-photon and
FIG. 2. !Color online" Detection efficiency as a function of the voltage 2-photon excited avalanche signals, respectively. The stan-
applied on the APD. dard deviation and average voltage of 1-photon-number
state, and the voltage separation between n-photon-number
photon number was kept at about 0.9 photons per pulse. and !n + 1"-photon-number states !n ! 0" used in the curve
Figure 3!a" presents the histogram of the photon excited ava- fitting are listed in Table I. As shown in Table I, the average
lanche peak output voltage, when the applied voltage on the voltage of 1-photon-number state was increased from 12.0 to
APD was set to 57.0 V with the corresponding detection 14.8 mV, due to the increase in the carrier generation by
efficiency at 7.5%. As the single-photon pulse used in the impact ionization in the InP layer as a direct result of the
experiment was from an attenuated coherent light source, the increased avalanche gain within the APD. The background
photon-number statistics obeyed the Poissonian distribution. noise caused by the small mismatch of the self-differencing
The probability of the APD peak output signal could be con- circuit was not associated to the voltage applied on the APD
sidered as the superposition of each photon-number state, and remained at 5.8 mV. Evidently, an increase in the applied
given by voltage was propitious to the discrimination of the avalanche
# signal from the background noise.
P!V" = % p!",n" · $!n,V", !1" The PNR capability was investigated under different
n=0 avalanche gain by monitoring the standard deviation of
1-photon-number state and the voltage separation between
where p!" , n" is the probability of containing n photons per n-photon-number and !n + 1"-photon-number states !n ! 0".
pulse in the Poissonian distribution when the average de- Obviously, a smaller standard deviation and a bigger separa-
tected photon number is " and $!n , V" is the voltage signal tion correspond to a better PNR performance. Here we use
the ratio of the standard deviation to the voltage separation to
(a)
characterize the PNR performance. The smaller ratio, the
8 57.0 V η=7.5% better PNR performance is. As shown in Table I, the ratio
6 decreased from 53.6% to 41.3% while increasing the applied
voltage from 57.0 to 57.4 V when the gating pulse duration
4
was kept at 700 ps, indicating that a higher avalanche gain
2 would improve the PNR capability before the avalanche gain
0 saturation.
Probability (%)

8
(b) We then increased the incident photon flux to about 1.9
57.2 V η=11.2%
photons per pulse to investigate the PNR performance while
6
maintaining the same detection efficiency when varying the
4 gating pulse duration. A relatively higher detection efficiency
2 would result in a better resolution of the photon number. We
thus fixed the detection efficiency at 19.0%. Figure 4 plots
0
(c) the histograms of the peak output signal voltage recorded for
8 0−photon η=15.3%
57.4 V different gating pulse durations from 700 to 500 ps. The
6 simulations of the experimental data, shown by the dark
4
1−photon green solid lines in Fig. 4, were performed by assuming a
2−photon Poissonian distribution for the incident photons. The distri-
2
bution of the background noise were maintained almost the
0 same at different gating pulse durations. The standard devia-
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06
tion and voltage separation in the curve fitting at different
Peak output voltage (V) gating pulse durations are listed in Table II.
FIG. 3. !Color online" Distributions of the peak output signal voltage with
While the gating pulse duration was shortened, the ava-
different voltage applied on the APD. The gating pulse duration was set to lanche period in the APD was also shortened and the varia-
be 700 ps. tion of the amount of carriers generated by impact ionization
131118-3 Chen et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 131118 "2009!

!n ! 0" became smaller at a shorter gating pulse duration as

(a) 700 ps η=19.0%
3 shown in Table II, owing to the lower avalanche gain. The
ratio of the standard deviation to the separation was de-
2
creased as well. This result matched the comparison shown
1 in Fig. 4, and the PNR performance was improved as the
gating pulse duration was shortened.
0 In conclusion, with the self-differencing circuit, weak
Probability (%)

(b) 600 ps η=19.0% avalanche current difference caused by different photon-

3
number states could be distinguished. PNR detection was
2 achieved with an InGaAs/InP APD. By shortening the gating
pulse duration and maintaining a relatively high avalanche
1
gain before saturating the APD, PNR was improved due to a
0 smaller ratio of the standard deviation to the separation
(c) 0−photon caused by a higher avalanche gain of the APD and smaller
3 500 ps η=19.0%
1−photon
standard deviation of the n-photon-number state in a shorter
2−photon
2 gate duration. A better resolution would be expected if the
3−photon
gating pulse duration could become even shorter.
1 4−photon
This work was funded in part by National Natural Sci-
0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 ence Fund of China !Grant Nos. 10525416 and 107740445",
Peak output voltage (V) National Key Project for Basic Research !Grant No.
2006CB921105", Projects from Shanghai Science and Tech-
FIG. 4. !Color online" Comparison of the output signal recorded by the APD nology Commission !Grant Nos. 8530708200 and
with different pulse durations. The detection efficiency was set to be 19%. 08dz1400703", and Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline
Project !Grant No. B408".
decreased, leading to a reduced standard deviation of the 1
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