Position dependent circuit model for thin avalanche photodiodes

Abstract

This paper presents a circuit model for thin avalanche photodiodes (APDs). In this model, the nonuniformity of the electric filed in the multiplication region is modeled using a stepwise method. The model also tries to take the effects of carrier’s position dependent properties, like carrier’s dead length and the history of carrier’s previous ionization into account by developing an effective electric field in the multiplication region. The output photocurrent and multiplication gain obtained from the proposed model for different lengths of the multiplication region achieve a good agreement in comparison with available experimental data. In addition, calculated excess noise factor reveals the model ability for noise and sensitivity analysis.

Keywords

avalanche photodiode (APD) / circuit modeling / multiplication gain / nonuniform electric field / excess noise factor

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg