Effect of impact ionization in the InGaAs absorber on excess noise of avalanche photodiodes

The effects of impact ionization in the InGaAs absorption layer on the multiplication, excess noise and breakdown voltage are modeled for avalanche photodiodes (APDs), both with InP and with InAlAs multiplication regions. The calculations allow for dead space effects and for the low field electron ionization observed in InGaAs. The results confirm that impact ionization in the InGaAs absorption layer increases the excess noise in InP APDs and that the effect imposes tight constraints on the doping of the charge control layer if avalanche noise is to be minimized. However, the excess noise of InAlAs APDs is predicted to be reduced by impact ionization in the InGaAs layer. Furthermore the breakdown voltage of InAlAs APDs is less sensitive to ionization in the InGaAs layer and these results increase tolerance to doping variations in the field control layer

Biomass and reproduction of Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) off the Pacific northwestern United States, 2003–2005

The Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) is distributed along the west coast of North America from Baja California to British Columbia. This article presents estimates of biomass, spawning biomass, and related biological parameters based on four trawl-ichthyoplankton surveys conducted during July 2003 –March 2005 off Oregon and Washington. The trawl-based biomass estimates, serving as relative abundance, were 198,600 t (coefficient of variation [CV] = 0.51) in July 2003, 20,100 t (0.8) in March 2004, 77,900 t (0.34) in July 2004, and 30,100 t (0.72) in March 2005 over an area close to 200,000 km2. The biomass estimates, high in July and low in March, are a strong indication of migration in and out of this area. Sardine spawn in July off the Pacific Northwest (PNW) coast and none of the sampled fish had spawned in March. The estimated spawning biomass for July 2003 and July 2004 was 39,184 t (0.57) and 84,120 t (0.93), respectively. The average active female sardine in the PNW spawned every 20–40 days compared to every 6–8 days off California. The spawning habitat was located in the southeastern area off the PNW coast, a shift from the northwest area off the PNW coast in the 1990s. Egg production in off the PNW for 2003–04 was lower than that off California and that in the 1990s. Because the biomass of Pacific sardine off the PNW appears to be supported heavily by migratory fish from California, the sustainability of the local PNW population relies on the stability of the population off California, and on local oceanographic conditions for local residence

Field dependence of impact ionization coefficients in In0.53Ga0.47As

Electron and hole ionization coefficients in In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As are deduced from mixed carrier avalanche photomultiplication measurements on a series of p-i-n diode layers, eliminating other effects that can lead to an increase in photocurrent with reverse bias. Low field ionization is observed for electrons but not for holes, resulting in a larger ratio of ionization coefficients, even at moderately high electric fields than previously reported. The measured ionization coefficients are marginally lower than those of GaAs for fields above 250 kVcm/sup -1/, supporting reports of slightly higher avalanche breakdown voltages in In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As than in GaAs p-i-n diodes

Excess noise measurement in In0.53Ga0.47As

The excess noise due to impact ionization has been measured explicitly for the first time in In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As. By using a phase sensitive detection technique, the noise due to avalanche current was determined even in the presence of high tunneling currents. The excess noise due to pure electron injection measured on a series of thick In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As p/sup +/-i-n/sup +/ diodes suggests large electron to hole ionization coefficient ratio between 3.7 at electric field of 310 kV/spl middot/cm/sup -1/ to 5.3 at 260 kV/spl middot/cm/sup -1/. Excess noise was also measured at fields as low as 155 kV/spl middot/cm/sup -1/ suggesting that significant impact ionization occurs at these low fields. The multiplication and excess noise calculated using published ionization coefficients and ignoring dead space effects, gave good agreement with the experimental data for mixed and pure electron injection

Temperature dependence of breakdown and avalanche multiplication in In0.53Ga0.47As diodes and heterojunction bipolar transistors

The avalanche multiplication and impact ionization coefficients in In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As p-i-n and n-i-p diodes over a range of temperature from 20-400 K were measured and shown to have negative temperature dependence. This is contrary to the positive temperature dependence of the breakdown voltage measured on InP/In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) in this and previous works. It is shown that the collector-base dark current and current gain can be the overriding influence on the temperature dependence of breakdown in InP/In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As HBTs and could explain previous anomalous interpretations from the latter

Low multiplication noise thin Al0.6Ga0.4As avalanche photodiodes

Avalanche multiplication and excess noise were measured on a series of Al0.6Ga0.4As p+in+ and n+ip+ diodes, with avalanche region thickness, w ranging from 0.026 μm to 0.85 μm. The results show that the ionization coefficient for electrons is slightly higher than for holes in thick, bulk material. At fixed multiplication values the excess noise factor was found to decrease with decreasing w, irrespective of injected carrier type. Owing to the wide Al0.6Ga0.4As bandgap extremely thin devices can sustain very high electric fields, giving rise to very low excess noise factors, of around F~3.3 at a multiplication factor of M~15.5 in the structure with w=0.026 μm. This is the lowest reported excess noise at this value of multiplication for devices grown on GaAs substrates. Recursion equation modeling, using both a hard threshold dead space model and one which incorporates the detailed history of the ionizing carriers, is used to model the nonlocal nature of impact ionization giving rise to the reduction in excess noise with decreasing w. Although the hard threshold dead space model could reproduce qualitatively the experimental results, better agreement was obtained from the history-dependent mode

FAST: FAST Analysis of Sequences Toolbox.

FAST (FAST Analysis of Sequences Toolbox) provides simple, powerful open source command-line tools to filter, transform, annotate and analyze biological sequence data. Modeled after the GNU (GNU's Not Unix) Textutils such as grep, cut, and tr, FAST tools such as fasgrep, fascut, and fastr make it easy to rapidly prototype expressive bioinformatic workflows in a compact and generic command vocabulary. Compact combinatorial encoding of data workflows with FAST commands can simplify the documentation and reproducibility of bioinformatic protocols, supporting better transparency in biological data science. Interface self-consistency and conformity with conventions of GNU, Matlab, Perl, BioPerl, R, and GenBank help make FAST easy and rewarding to learn. FAST automates numerical, taxonomic, and text-based sorting, selection and transformation of sequence records and alignment sites based on content, index ranges, descriptive tags, annotated features, and in-line calculated analytics, including composition and codon usage. Automated content- and feature-based extraction of sites and support for molecular population genetic statistics make FAST useful for molecular evolutionary analysis. FAST is portable, easy to install and secure thanks to the relative maturity of its Perl and BioPerl foundations, with stable releases posted to CPAN. Development as well as a publicly accessible Cookbook and Wiki are available on the FAST GitHub repository at https://github.com/tlawrence3/FAST. The default data exchange format in FAST is Multi-FastA (specifically, a restriction of BioPerl FastA format). Sanger and Illumina 1.8+ FastQ formatted files are also supported. FAST makes it easier for non-programmer biologists to interactively investigate and control biological data at the speed of thought

A theoretical comparison of the breakdown behavior of In0.52Al0.48As and InP near-infrared single-photon avalanche photodiodes

We study the breakdown characteristics and timing statistics of InP and In0.52Al0.48As single-photon avalanche photodiodes (SPADs) with avalanche widths ranging from 0.2 to 1.0 mu m at room temperature using a random ionization path-length model. Our results show that, for a given avalanche width, the breakdown probability of In0.52Al0.48As SPADs increases faster with overbias than InP SPADs. When we compared their timing statistics, we observed that, for a given breakdown probability, InP requires a shorter time to reach breakdown and exhibits a smaller timing jitter than In0.52Al0.48As. However, due to the lower dark count probability and faster rise in breakdown probability with overbias, In0.52Al0.48As SPADs with avalanche widths <= 0.5 mu m are more suitable for single-photon detection at telecommunication wavelengths than InP SPADs. Moreover, we predict that, in InP SPADs with avalanche widths <= 0.3 mu m and In0.52Al0.48As SPADs with avalanche widths <= 0.2 mu m, the dark count probability is higher than the photon count probability for all applied biases

Versatile spectral imaging with an algorithm-based spectrometer using highly tuneable quantum dot infrared photodetectors

We report on the implementation of an algorithm-based spectrometer capable of reconstructing the spectral shape of materials in the mid-wave infrared (MWIR) and long-wave infrared (LWIR) wavelengths using only experimental photocurrent measurements from quantum dot infrared photodetectors (QDIPs). The theory and implementation of the algorithm will be described, followed by an investigation into this algorithmic spectrometer's performance. Compared to the QDIPs utilized in an earlier implementation, the ones used here have highly varying spectral shapes and four spectral peaks across the MWIR and LWIR wavelengths. It has been found that the spectrometer is capable of reconstructing broad spectral features of a range of bandpass infrared filters between wavelengths of 4 and 12 mu m as well as identifying absorption features as narrow as 0.3 mu m in the IR spectrum of a polyethylene sheet

Network optimisation - A statistical physics perspective

Inference and optimisation of real-value edge variables in sparse graphs are studied using the tree based Bethe approximation optimisation algorithms. Equilibrium states of general energy functions involving a large set of real edge-variables that interact at the network nodes are obtained for networks in various cases. These include different cost functions, connectivity values, constraints on the edge bandwidth and the case of multiclass optimisation