Analysis of Dark Count Mechanisms of 4H-SiC Ultraviolet Avalanche Photodiodes Working in Geiger Mode

In this paper, the dark count mechanisms of 4H-SiC ultraviolet avalanche photodiodes (APDs) working in Geiger mode are studied by temperature-dependent characterizations. At temperatures above 260 K, the activation energy derived from the dark count characteristics is much less than half of the bandgap of 4H-SiC. Trap-assisted tunneling is determined as the dominant carrier transport mechanism in this temperature regime, which is supported by the observed capacitance frequency dispersion and low-temperature persistent photoconductivity effect. As temperature further decreases, the temperature dependence of dark count rate (DCR) becomes weaker, suggesting that band-to-band tunneling starts to play a role in the dark count generation process, which turns into the major mechanism below 120 K. As a consequence, one way to suppress dark counts for SiC APDs is to inhibit tunneling process, which can be realized by increasing the intrinsic layer thickness. In addition, it is found that when the single photon detection efficiency is in the range of 0%-30%, the DCR of the SiC APD can be reduced by an order of magnitude as temperature decreases from room temperature to 77 K, which is the first report of low-temperature performance of SiC APDs.