Characterization of temperature effects on single-photon avalanche diodes fabricated in a HV-CMOS conventional technology

This paper presents the thermal characterization of a CMOS SPAD (Single-Photon Avalanche PhotoDiode) detector. The sensor and the readout electronics have been monolithically integrated with a conventional 0.35μm HV-CMOS process. In-pixel electronics allow to operate the device in a time-gated mode to reduce the probability to detect the sensor noise within a given frame. The thermal effects on the device have been characterized for two different reverse bias overvoltages of 1.0V and 2.0V within the temperature range between -20°C and 60°C. It will be demonstrated in this paper that the combination of time-gating the sensor in the nanosecond scale with the reduction of the working temperature to -20°C decreases in 5 orders of magnitude the expected noise counts per frame with respect to the continuous operation at room temperature.