How avalanche pulses evolve in space and time

S. A. Plimmer; Paul J. Hambleton; Beng Koon Ng; G. M. Dunn; Jo Shien Ng; John P. R. David; Graham J. Rees

doi:10.1117/12.432602

9 July 2001 How avalanche pulses evolve in space and time

S. A. Plimmer, Paul J. Hambleton, Beng Koon Ng, G. M. Dunn, Jo Shien Ng, John P. R. David, Graham J. Rees

Proceedings Volume 4283, Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices IX; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.432602
Event: Symposium on Integrated Optics, 2001, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

Conventional models of the time response of avalanche photodiodes (APDs) assume that carriers travel uniformly at their saturated drift velocity, vsat. To test the validity of this drift velocity assumption (DVA) the model was used to compute the distribution of exit times of electrons generated in an avalanche pulse and the results were compared with those of Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations. The comparison demonstrates that, while the DVA is valid for thick (1um) avalanching regions, it does not take account of non-equilibrium effects which occur in thin avalanching regions, nor of the effects of diffusion. As a consequence, the DVA model may increasingly underestimate the speed of APDs as the width of the avalanche region is reduced.

Citation Download Citation

S. A. Plimmer, Paul J. Hambleton, Beng Koon Ng, G. M. Dunn, Jo Shien Ng, John P. R. David, and Graham J. Rees "How avalanche pulses evolve in space and time", Proc. SPIE 4283, Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices IX, (9 July 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.432602

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