Planar InAs avalanche photodiodes with high gain and low noise factor

In photon-starved extended short- and mid-wave infrared optical applications, replacing Mercury Cadmium Telluride (HgCdTe) avalanche photodiodes (APDs) with Indium Arsenide (InAs) APDs offers significant environmental and cost benefits. To demonstrate InAs APDs as a viable alternative, we fabricated planar devices using ion implantation and rigorously characterised multiple devices under high-gain operating conditions. These planar APDs exhibited a very low excess noise factor (F ∼ 1.4) for gains up to 250 at 77 K, comparable to HgCdTe devices. We believe this to be the first experimental report of such low excess noise in planar InAs APDs, marking a significant step towards establishing them as a realistic alternative.