Study And Design Of Readout Circuit For Infrared Single-photon Detection Array

The infrared single photon detection technology has a wide range of application prospects in the military field,quantum communication and computing,biochemical applications(such as fluorescence lifetime detection),space laser communication technology,laser ranging and laser radar ranging systems and three-dimensional imaging,Astronomical observation and other fields have extremely important research significance,and they are also the frontier science and technology that countries in the world scramble to research and develop.In this paper,a readout circuit for single photon detection is designed.Its main function is to measure the photon's flight time,and a pixel-level time-to-digital converter is designed to increase the distance of the laser radar's range measurement.The range of distance can reach 1000 meters,with high time accuracy.In this dissertation,an in-depth single-photon detection readout circuit for infrared single photon detection is studied and designed.A single-photon detection readout circuit based on InGaAs/InP material avalanche diode is designed.The main contents of this paper are as follows:1.In this dissertation,passive quenching and passive recharge circuit is used to realize the state that the detector array is quenched and restored to photons to be detected in the event of an avalanche.In order to realize the high voltage protection of the readout circuit under the standard CMOS process.The structure of a large metal resistor is integrated in the pixel,and the sensing point is separated from the readout circuit by a capacitor to ensure that the readout circuit does not break down.2.In order to achieve high temporal resolution and improve dynamic range and laser radar measurable distance,the multi-phase high frequency clock required for the digital time conversion circuit designed in this paper is provided by an on-chip integrated phase-locked loop and uses coarse counts and fines.Counting the combination of methods,making the final time resolution can be below 330 ps,and the theoretical detectable distance of more than 1000 meters.3.In order to improve the read rate of the overall chip,a readout method is adopted in which the in-pixel data is completely parallel,and the entire pixel array is divided into left and right two half planes.Each half-plane shares one digital output channel,and finally makes the whole chip.The frame rate can reach 100 k frames per second and above.And the bias of the readout circuit is provided off-chip.4.This chip design finally uses 1P4 M 0.18?m process chip,and uses cadence software for circuit design,simulation and layout drawing to complete a single photon detection of an avalanche diode based on In GaAs/InP material with an array size of 16×16.