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Nature Communications

Practical photon number detection with electric field-modulated silicon avalanche photodiodes

O. Thomas, Zhiliang L. Yuan, Andrew J. Shields

Published Jan 24, 2012• 30 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1038/ncomms1641

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Journal of Optical Technology•Nov 1, 2021•3 citations
We demonstrate an efficient photon number detector for visible wavelengths using a fast-gated silicon avalanche photodiode. Using sub-nanosecond voltage gates with a self-differencing circuit, the device is able to resolve up to four photons in an incident optical pulse, with a detection probability of up to 91.1 % at 1 GHz. With this performance and close to room temperature operation, fast-gated silicon avalanche photodiodes are ideal for optical quantum information processing that requires single-shot photon number detection.
We present an efficient and robust quantum random number generator based upon high-rate room temperature photon number detection. We employ an electric field-modulated silicon avalanche photodiode, a type of device particularly suited to high-rate photon number detection with excellent photon number resolution to detect, without an applied dead-time, up to 4 photons from the optical pulses emitted by a laser. By both measuring and modeling the response of the detector to the incident photons, we are able to determine the illumination conditions that achieve an optimal bit rate that we show is robust against variation in the photon flux. We extract random bits from the detected photon numbers with an efficiency of 99% corresponding to 1.97 bits per detected photon number yielding a bit rate of 143 Mbit/s, and verify that the extracted bits pass stringent statistical tests for randomness. Our scheme is highly scalable and has the potential of multi-Gbit/s bit rates.
We demonstrate the possibility of blinding attacks on silicon avalanche photodiodes operating at room temperature and used in quantum cryptographic systems for the detection of single-photon radiation pulses at a wavelength of 850 nm. The parameters of different silicon avalanche photodiodes in the event of their blinding are determined. The possibility of detecting blinding attacks on avalanche photodiodes by controlling the electrical current through the photodiode is established. According to the obtained results, different radiant exposures of multiphoton optical pulses are required to imitate single-photon pulses for different avalanche photodiodes, and the duration of the optical pulses must be shorter than 1 µs. We determine that information on the properties of the avalanche photodetector used in the quantum cryptographic system is required to select the intensity of the optical emission and radiant exposure of multiphoton optical pulses for executing a blinding attack. A schematic of the experimental setup used to investigate blinding attacks and oscillograms of the output signals of avalanche photodiodes under such conditions are presented.