Low Temperature Performance of a Large Area Avalanche Photodiode

Abstract

A Large Area Avalanche Photodiode (LAAPD) was studied, aiming to access its performance as light detector at low temperatures, down to -80 C. The excess noise factor, F, was measured and found to be approximately independent of the temperature. A linear dependence of F on the APD gain with a slope of 0.00239 +/- 0.00008 was observed for gains above 100. The detection of low intensity light pulses, producing only a few primary electron-hole pairs in the photodiode, is reported.

16 pages, 7 figures; was presented at 3-rd conference "New Developments in Photodetection" Beaune, France, June 17-21, 2002; submitted to NIM