Recent Advances in Large Area Silicon Avalanche Photodiodes for Particle Detection

Abstract

This work presents advancements in silicon large-area avalanche photodiodes (LA-APD) for use as charged-particle and photo-detectors with internal gain when operated at a sufficiently high bias. Improvements in wafer processing, innovative surface fabrication techniques, and specialized electrode configurations has led to the production of hyper-fast APD devices with picosecond timing capability. In addition, APD photosensors with high quantum efficiency in the ultraviolet (UV) have been produced, which have the ability to discriminate the UV photons from visible photons. LA-APDs can be fabricated as arrays and as position-sensitive detectors in sizes ranging from 2 mm² to over 160 mm².