Excess Noise in GaAs Avalanche Photodiodes with Thin Multiplication Regions
نویسندگان
چکیده
It is well known that the gain–bandwidth product of an avalanche photodiode can be increased by utilizing a thin multiplication region. Previously, measurements of the excess noise factor of InP–InGaAsP–InGaAs avalanche photodiodes with separate absorption and multiplication regions indicated that this approach could also be employed to reduce the multiplication noise. This paper presents a systematic study of the noise characteristics of GaAs homojunction avalanche photodiodes with different multiplication layer thicknesses. It is demonstrated that there is a definite “size effect” for multiplication regions less than approximately 0.5 m. A good fit to the experimental data has been achieved using a discrete, nonlocalized model for the impact ionization process.
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