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7

SPECTROLAB •• Development of low noise and

high speed SWIR receivers

Xiaogang Bai, Ping Yuan, Paul McDonald, Joseph Boisvert,

Robyn Woo, Kam Wan, Rengarajan Sudharsanan Boeing Spectrolab Sylmar, CA

Michael Krainak, Guangning Yang, Xiaoli Sun, Wei Lu NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, MD

Dion Mcintosh, Qiugui Zhou, Han-din Liu, Joe Campbell Dept of ECE, University of Virginia, VA

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https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20180000021 2019-08-30T13:32:37+00:00Z

SPECTROLAB l;··· .. Outline .

• Motivation

• Receiver Requirements

• Gen.1 photoreceiver design and performance

• Gen. 2 design and receiver development . - 126 low ex.cess noise APO design

• Summary

2

SPECTROLAB

-

:' '21111 . .... Motivation ~D.EING • IOWIG :·. •:,<~, •

• Low-noise high speed receivers operating in the 1-1.5 micron wavelength region are needed for future NASA LADAR imaging applications

• Currently LADAR receivers use Si APO detectors with sensitivity as low as 40 fW/Hz112 for many NASA applications

- Si detectors are limited to only in the visible spectrum

C ':s:r.~~ion~~- ···- .. ".Ji TM> NRC COJ1l1111Uee Repo,ts f.Uuea' 11"1 ~ '2IJD7

c.a&dlnie•~-~=ttCO •AtlWN--.... NQU ~

-ll!,"lii'IIT ...... :::. ~. -=a,~ RntlplfllZit:;'/:"' I.IIMll.1t\...,.... ....,_

:== l"'' 'JD ,, ~ I ......... !

i"~, ""1;~,:r::r--=,;.:,",!"_:·1-.~·Jt.":'.::.:"'?

me,. a:mJ ....... .. • .. • ftl,oj Mnqgt,e .... ,.,... ...... ........ ...._,Mrfstno

esr·o .. .....- .. -._ .• ,, ¢,,_.-,

3

SPECTROLAB -* -Goal:

Receiver Requirements

Generation 1: 1.06µm APD receivers with 200 µm aperture, sensitivity< 100 fW/Hz112 @ a bandwidth of 140 MHz

Generation 2: 1.06µm APD receivers with sensitivity< 300 fW/ Hz1'2 @ bandwi~th of 1 GHz

Energy 4

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SPECTROLAB . ~-.. Noise equivalent Power <{)PoE,NG

Analysis

• APO+ TIA Amp NEP , NEP= l 2qlaF + a 2 [ 2 ]1/2

Rsp M

1 F = kM +(2--)(1-k)

M

where R5P is the APO unity gain responsivity, M is the APO optical gain, F is the APO excess noise factor, k is the ratio of the hole and electron ionization coefficients, a is the TIA noise current density.

• Two critical parameters to reduce NEP

- Excess noise factor k

- TIA noise current density a

Receiver NEP

100E-12 r-4-----------.

... lnP200um

- lnAIAs 200 um

1 OOE-13 ----·--·-···.__- --·-· ···, · .. , .... - ·---- ---,· ···-· -- , 0 20 40 60 80 100

APOGainM

5

,:

l,

i,

s p E c r RO

L \i. Gen .. 1 Photoreceiver Design <tL•0 .E'N° ~ 80UNG :•:•:Fv,• ··-·

• 200 µm lnP APD • Low noise TIA , SA5211 1.8 pA/Hz112 • An integrated TEC cooler and a AD590 temperature sensor chip

TIA

TIA

0.1 µ 10µF

II 4.4

_i_r·1µF -=- -=- 200 µm lnP APO

1.E.o:1

1.E ...

1.E41

1.E-10

Receiver 1-V data 1714-10 200l.mAPD

J!i < i- i..-i...-

I/ .....

-._,,,,. V

/ /

i' , ~ ....

J

I

-·

...

C " ill C)

\ .J' 1.E-11 1

.. ,u •.11 111.11 11.11 11.11 111.11 10.11 n.11 m.11

it.v1tUB1uM

Output

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SPECTROLAB f?.. ~ -f • Gen. 1 Receiver Bandwidth ~oE,NG

• .. C 0 ... ~

1000

~ 100 .!:! .; ~ 0 z

• IOUNG •>: •:, <r,,

Spectrolab receiver bandwidth with a 1.0 pF APO

010~~..:;:...:.:.~~~~~~~~;..::;t.:~ 000 005 010 0.15 0.20 025

Fr1>quency (GH:)

Receiver response to a lOOps 1.06µm laser pulse.

030 035

• Achieved bandwidth of 180 MHz

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SPECTROLAB ~ ~; - ., .• Gen. 1 Photoreceiver NEP

Data

1700

>

RMS Voltage Data

Spectrolab receiver RMS noise voltage at output

-;- 1500 t~~~~~-:::-;-ri~~~cif::~~~~~~~ a,

~ 1300 +..:.:.~~...:;;..;..-,-a-;;...;,.:.;..,,.,,.:..,-..,,..,;;.~ > • .. 1 1100 en :E a: 900

700

500 ~~~~~~::i:;l~~~~~~~~

0.00 1000 2000 30 00

Gain

4000 50.00 6000

• NEP < 300 fw/Hz112 was achieved

.... :c l: [ 1 OOE-12 ti. w z

NEP Data

Spectrolab receiver with 200um loP APO at 267K

1 OOE-13 .i,.;.;...: ....... ~=;.;.;.:.,..;.:;.;;.........,_.,_

000 10 00 20 00 30.00 40.00 50 00 60 00

Gain

1--NEPI

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SPECTROLAB (X .. ~ ....... !' Gen-2 Receiver Sensitivity i>--.. 'EIND

Improvements

Goal: 300 fW/Hz112 @bandwidth of 1GHz

• Quantum efficiency

- Gen. 1 lnP APO has 64% quantum efficiency

- 75% QE will reduce NEP by 17%.

• Low noise TIAs

- Select best low noise TIAs in die form with less than 6pA/ Hz1'2 input referred noise current.·

• Reduce excess noise in APO

- lnAIAs has a k value -0.22

- 12E APO design with reduced keffs0.15

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SPECTROLAB ,. ~. T ~ 12E APD Fundamentals <{i-aoEING

• APDs have high internal gain and associate excess noise • k factor is a material parameter for bulk material

p

I2E= Impact Ionization Engineering

Multiplication Region __ t--..:..wi.tb In052~Ga0.4 ~ of ditTerent x 12E is an approach to combine

materials with different impact ionization threshold energies in the multiplication region. In

0

48%

• E,(e\<1= • . • .

1.49 I I I I • . I I : I :

80

43%

I I • . . • I I . I I I

1.41 .. . I • I • I I

: 1.34: . . I f . . • •

140 180

---+N

1.25

250

ET

[nm)

the 12E structure, the avalanche events are more deterministic which result a low effective k­factor.

Graph from S. Wang, et. al., IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol.14, No. 12, pg1722, 2002

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SPECTROLAB ":;all Jlla Spectrolab lnAIAs APO

lnAIAs 800

700 Gain= 10

Cap lnGaAs P+ e 600

"' > 500 ~

Contact lnAIAs P+ "O 400 .; Abs ii: IJJ 300

Absorption i-lnGaAs 200

100

Charge p-lnAIAs 0.5 1.0

Multiplication p·.anAIAs Po11itlon /um\ 1E-07

Contact lnAIAs N+ 1E-08

Buffer lnP N+ $ t 1E-09 - -

5 ... .-Substrate lnP N+

1E-10 - --- --

1e-11

0 5 10 15 20

Bias (V)

I:/= -

hV ... -

lnAIAs APO shows kett = 0.22

1E+20

1E+19 e-1E+18

g, C 0

1E+17 ~ ; C

1E+16 Cl> u C I 0

1E+15 0 I

1:11 C

1E+14 Q. 0 Q

1E+13

1E+12 1.5

"10000

"1000

C

"100 .. Cl

"10

1

25 30 35

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I .

SPECTROLAB <{)...._IIIIE'I.IVLi

"'""!' Spectrolab 12E APO Design

p+ lnGaAs Cap layer, 50nm

p+ lnAIAs, 300nm

i-lnGaAIAs Absorber 1200nm

Eg-1.05 eV

p+, lnAIAs Charge layer

12E Multiplier

n+ lnAIAs Buffer

n+ lnP Substrate

• lnGaAIAs layer with bandgap of 1.2 eV is used as a multiplier

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SPECTROLAB ..

1 E-04

1E-05

1 E-06

$ 1 E-07 .. C ., l:

1 E-08 :J 0

1 E-09

1 E-10

1 E-11 0 5 10

12E Device 1-V Data

Device A

15 20

VoltageM

25 30 35 40

• Show very low dark current before breakdown.

Device B

VoltageM

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SPECTROL\111 Excess Noise Measurement~aeiN.o

-Power Supply

Noise F1gm Meter · •with'

standard noise soun:e ·

Testing procedure: (a) At unity gain, measure S vs. lunity to fit the 2eR(w).

(b) Measure S vs. M to get F(M).

UV laser is absorbed near the surface p+ contact layer. Electrons are diffused into the multiplier, thus pure electron injection is realized.

• Setup graph is from Dr. Shuling Wang's Ph. D. dissertation(2002).

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SPECTROLAB ·-~ .. 5

4.5

4

3.5

3 -~ 2.5 II.

2

1.5

0.5

0

1

Excess Noise Results

k-value K=0.2

k=0.15

k=0.2

4 7 10 13 16

Gain

• Both device A and B show k value less than 0.1

K

19

~ kS0.15 is feasible at high gain (15-30) for future 12E

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S P E C T R O L A B . • 0\ BOEING - -: ·111 Gen. 2 Photorece1ver - NEP ~

, ICUliG ·. '· ; .. ,. ·

Analysis

NEP analysis

Hr:':~;--:-:=:~~~~~;;~.,,._ .. -. :7'-i:-1. - --k=0.22, ln=6 pNrt(Hz),ld=50 pA .

~k=0.15, ln=8 pA/rt(Hz),ld=50 pA J 1--4--i.---~-,---.,.-~-,--,--~.,.....i ls=0.15, ln=6 pNrt(Hz),ld=50 pA J

!

~ J ~ -- ls=0.1, ln=8 pNrt(Hz),ld=50 pA 1 ! 1.0E-12 t:.-=.-::..~':!;.-;::.,-::..::::.-::_::;:_-:::::_-::_-::::,-:::,-=.-::_::::.-::_::;-::_~ Q. w z

0 10 20 30 40 50

APO Gain

60 70 80 90 100

• NEP less than 300 fW/Hz112 over 1 GHz bandwidth can be achieved using 12E devices

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. . SPECTROLAB

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•c .• ., :"'·-' . Summary

• Demonstrated NEP<300fw/Hz112 photoreceiver using lnP APO

• Developed lnAIAs base·d 12E APDs .

• Demonstrated low excess noise APDs, keff<0.1

• Developing Gen. 2 receiver with 12E APO devices to achieve

NEP less than 300fw/Hz1'2 over 1 GHz

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