Afterpulsing studies of low noise InGaAs/InP single-photon negative feedback avalanche diodes

摘要

We characterize the temporal evolution of the afterpulse probability in afree-running negative feedback avalanche diode (NFAD) over an extended range,from $\sim$300 ns to $\sim$1 ms. This is possible thanks to an extremely lowdark count rate on the order of 1 cps at 10% efficiency, achieved by operatingthe NFAD at a temperatures as low as 143 K. Experimental results in a largerange of operating temperatures (223-143 K) are compared with a legacyafterpulsing model based on multiple trap families at discrete energy levels,which is found to be lacking in physical completeness. Subsequently, we expandon a recent proposal which considers a continuous spectrum of traps byintroducing well defined edges to the spectrum, which are experimentallyobserved.