Advances in Solid-State Single Photon Detection Devices and Circuits

Dear Colleagues,

Advanced information acquisition and interchange technologies by utilizing the nature of a single photon have become an  important development trend. Long-range communication, ranging and imaging scenarios such as free-space laser communication (FSCO), quantum key distribution (QKD), three-dimensional light detection and ranging (LiDAR), time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC), etc., are pushing the development of solid-state single-photon detection devices and processing circuits. High-performance, robust candidates with the ability to capture a single photon with very low dark count rate (DCR) and afterpulsing probability are presently available, including single-photon avalanche photodiodes (SPADs), photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), multi-pixel photon counters (MPPCs), electron-initiated linear avalanche photodiodes (e-APDs), and superconducting nanowire photodetectors (SNSPDs). These devices cover several semiconductor material systems and a very broad light spectrum, e.g. the AlGaN/GaN ultraviolet SPAD, the visible silicon SPAD and MPCC (also known as silicon photomultiplier (SiPM)), the InGaAs/InP near-infrared SPAD, the shortwave infrared SNSPDs, and the HgCdTe e-APDs. These examples have been available in the forms of both single elements and focal plane arrays (FPAs) with formats up to megapixels. Faster quenching, more accurate timing and faster multiplexing circuits featuring less dead time, lower afterpulsing and high photon detection efficiency have all emerged with the trend from board-level electronics to integrated circuits. In addition, the rapid development of power-efficient area-optimized read-out integrated circuits (ROICs) for SPADs and e-APDs have solidly supported the increase in resolution of single-photon FPAs for various wavelengths.

This Special Issue is aimed at addressing issues that are involved in the design, fabrication, and characterization of solid-state optoelectronic devices and circuits under the single-photon detection regime. This includes:

• Single-photon detection;
• Single-photon avalanche photodiodes (SPADs);
• Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes (GmAPDs);
• Multi-pixel photon counters (MPCCs);
• Photomultipliers (PMTs);
• Superconducting nanowire photodetectors (SNSPDs);
• Ultraviolet/Visible/Infrared;
• GaN/Silicon/InGaAs/HgCdTe;
• Focal plane arrays (FPAs);
• Active quenching circuits (AQC);
• Time-to-digital converters (TDCs);
• Read-out integrated circuits (ROICs);
• Time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC);
• Single-photon-imaging signal processing;
• Single-photon detection circuits;
• Three-dimensional imaging (LiDAR);
• Quantum information processing.

Dr. Yingjie Ma
Dr. Junliang Liu
Prof. Dr. Hao Li
Guest Editors

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• single-photon detection
• single-photon avalanche photodiode (SPAD)
• geiger-mode multi-pixel photon counter (MPCC)
• silicon photomultiplier (SiPM)
• geiger-mode operation
• violet/Visible/Shortwave Infrared
• GaN/Silicon/InGaAs
• focal plane array
• active quenching circuit
• timing digital converter
• time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC)
• three-dimensional LiDAR
• quantum information processing.