When shot-noise-limited photodetectors disobey Poisson statistics
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2020
Abstract
Photodetectors with internal gain are of great interest for imaging applications, since internal gain reduces the effective noise of readout electronics. High-gain photodetectors have been demonstrated, but only individually rather than as a full array in a camera. Consequently, there has been little investigation of the interaction between camera complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) electronics and the slow response time that high-gain photodetectors often exhibit. Here we show that this interaction filters shot noise and causes noise statistics to differ from the common Poisson distribution. As an example, we investigate a 320 × 256 array of InGaAs/InP high-gain phototransistors bonded to a CMOS readout chip. We demonstrate the filtering effects and discuss their consequences, including new (to the best of our knowledge) methods for extracting gain and increasing dynamic range. © 2020 Optical Society of America
Keywords
Complementary metal oxide semiconductors, Dynamic range, Filtering effects, Imaging applications, Noise statistics, Poisson statistic, Readout chips, Readout Electronics
Divisions
photonics
Funders
Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental (SHyNE) Resource (NSF ECCS-1542205),Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (NSF DMR-1720139),State of Illinois,Northwestern University
Publication Title
Optics Letters
Volume
45
Issue
11
Publisher
Optical Society of America