A high-performance integrated single-photon detector for telecom wavelengths.

A commercial avalanche photodiode (APD) and the circuitry needed to operate it as a single-photon detector (SPD) have been integrated onto a single PC board (PCB). At temperatures accessible with Peltier coolers (∼200-240 K), the PCB-SPD achieves high detection efficiency ( DE ) at 1308 and 1545 nm with low dark-count probability (e.g. ∼10 -6 /bias pulse at DE = 20%, 220 K), making it useful for quantum key distribution (QKD). The board generates fast bias pulses, cancels noise transients, amplifies the signals, and sends them to an on-board discriminator. A digital blanking circuit suppresses afterpulsing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]