Modeling and Analysis of Capacitive Relaxation Quenching in a Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) Applied to a CMOS Image Sensor
Panasonic Corporation, 1 Kotari-yakemachi, Nagaokakyo City, Kyoto 617-8520, Japan
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Sensors 2020, 20(10), 3007; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20103007
Received: 23 March 2020
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Revised: 14 May 2020
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Accepted: 22 May 2020
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Published: 25 May 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Photon Counting Image Sensors)
We present an analysis of carrier dynamics of the single-photon detection process, i.e., from Geiger mode pulse generation to its quenching, in a single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD). The device is modeled by a parallel circuit of a SPAD and a capacitance representing both space charge accumulation inside the SPAD and parasitic components. The carrier dynamics inside the SPAD is described by time-dependent bipolar-coupled continuity equations (BCE). Numerical solutions of BCE show that the entire process completes within a few hundreds of picoseconds. More importantly, we find that the total amount of charges stored on the series capacitance gives rise to a voltage swing of the internal bias of SPAD twice of the excess bias voltage with respect to the breakdown voltage. This, in turn, gives a design methodology to control precisely generated charges and enables one to use SPADs as conventional photodiodes (PDs) in a four transistor pixel of a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor (CIS) with short exposure time and without carrier overflow. Such operation is demonstrated by experiments with a 6 µm size 400 × 400 pixels SPAD-based CIS designed with this methodology.
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Keywords:
avalanche breakdown; avalanche photodiodes; CMOS image sensor (CIS); quenching; single photon avalanche diode (SPAD)
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MDPI and ACS Style
Inoue, A.; Okino, T.; Koyama, S.; Hirose, Y. Modeling and Analysis of Capacitive Relaxation Quenching in a Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) Applied to a CMOS Image Sensor. Sensors 2020, 20, 3007. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20103007
AMA Style
Inoue A, Okino T, Koyama S, Hirose Y. Modeling and Analysis of Capacitive Relaxation Quenching in a Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) Applied to a CMOS Image Sensor. Sensors. 2020; 20(10):3007. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20103007
Chicago/Turabian StyleInoue, Akito, Toru Okino, Shinzo Koyama, and Yutaka Hirose. 2020. "Modeling and Analysis of Capacitive Relaxation Quenching in a Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) Applied to a CMOS Image Sensor" Sensors 20, no. 10: 3007. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20103007
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