A Compact High-Speed Active Quenching and Recharging Circuit for SPAD Detectors

• Published in: IEEE photonics journal Vol. 12; no. 5; pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Xu, Yue, Lu, Jiyuan, Wu, Zhong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.10.2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: active quenching and recharging circuit (AQRC); afterpulsing probability; Anodes; Avalanche diodes; Capacitance; Circuits; CMOS; CMOS technology; Counting; Detectors; High speed; Photon avalanches; photon-counting rate; Photonics; Photons; Quenching; Recharging; Sensors; Single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD); Transistors
• ISSN: 1943-0655; 1943-0655; 1943-0647
• DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2020.3015872

A compact high-speed active quenching and recharging circuit (AQRC) is proposed for single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) detectors fabricated in standard 0.18 μm CMOS technology. A novel sensing and quenching scheme is employed to speed up the process of avalanche detection, enabling a low afterpulsing probability and a high photon-counting rate. The simulation and experimental results indicate that the sensing and quenching time is reduced down to 0.7 ns and the maximum photon-counting rate is close to 200 Mcps (counts per second), meanwhile the afterpulsing probability as low as 0.75% is obtained. Due to the compact configuration, the area occupation of the AQRC is only 306 μm 2 . Such outstanding advantages suggest that the proposed AQRC is very suitable for the miniaturized and high-speed SPAD-array detectors.