Reduction of dark current and gain increase in InAs avalanche photodiode with AlGaAs blocking layer

This article presents a new method to reduce the dark current and increase the avalanche gain in InAs avalanche photodiode (APD) by adding Al0.84Ga0.16As blocking layer. This photodiode has displayed a high avalanche gain around 400 in 8V bias voltage. Furthermore, a very low dark current and low excess noise factor between 0.1 and 1.9 in a temperature of 180 K to 300 K is observed. Finally, in comparison with other devices, a considerable increase of the gain along with decrease in dark current is observed. (C) 2017 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.