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Indirect optical crosstalk reduction by highly-doped backside layer in single-photon avalanche diode arrays

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Abstract

A method of reducing indirect optical crosstalk in single-photon avalanche diode arrays is investigated by TCAD simulations. The reduction is accomplished by taking advantage of an enhanced optical absorption in a highly-doped Si layer on the backside of the wafer. A simulation environment was developed to give information about optical crosstalk by incorporating the experimental optical constants of the materials constituting the crosstalk-reduction layer. It is shown that the indirect optical crosstalk is greatly reduced by increasing the thickness and doping of the layer. A crosstalk reduction of 5 orders of magnitude is gained with addition of 1-μm-thick \(\hbox {PureB}/\upalpha \hbox {-Si}\) stack for the array processed on a p-type substrate, while the same reduction is achieved with a 1-μm-thick highly-doped Si layer (As, \(1.1\times 10^{20}\, \hbox {cm}^{-3}\)) for an array processed on an n-type substrate.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under Contract No. 9006.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Micro and Nano Electronics Laboratory, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Željko Osrečki, Tihomir Knežević & Tomislav Suligoj

  2. Faculty of Electrical Engineering Mathematics & Computer Science, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Lis K. Nanver

Authors
  1. Željko Osrečki
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  2. Tihomir Knežević
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  3. Lis K. Nanver
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  4. Tomislav Suligoj
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Željko Osrečki.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Numerical Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices, NUSOD’ 17.

Guest edited by Matthias Auf der Maur, Weida Hu, Slawomir Sujecki, Yuh-Renn Wu, Niels Gregersen, Paolo Bardella.

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Osrečki, Ž., Knežević, T., Nanver, L.K. et al. Indirect optical crosstalk reduction by highly-doped backside layer in single-photon avalanche diode arrays. Opt Quant Electron 50, 152 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-018-1415-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-018-1415-2

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