Innovative Photodetector for LIDAR Systems

Abstract

Optical navigation is widely used in automated robotics systems, smart cars, aviation. Every year the improvement of optical photo sensors expands their fields of application. Such systems or Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) systems have different designs depending on the application. But the principle of operation is the same, light photons of a certain wavelength are emitted onto the object, the reflected light is detected by a photodetector, which in turn transmits a digital signal to the electronics, through which special software saves this signal as a point in the overall picture. Visualization of the entire object requires a large number of recorded photosignals at different angles of light, the more points there are, the better the visualization will be. Therefore, the speed and recovery time of the photodetector plays a key role in the process of obtaining a 3D image. The paper presents the concept of a new silicon photodetector. The calculation results show that the proposed photodetector has a recovery time 10 times better than its counterparts. The developed photodetector has high speed, low noise level and high resolution. The improvement of these parameters enables the developed photodetectors to become an indispensable component for lidar systems.