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Mitigating radiation damage of single photon detectors for space applications

Single-photon detectors in space must retain useful performance characteristics despite being bombarded with sub-atomic particles. Mitigating the effects of this space radiation is vital to enabling new space applications which require high-fidelity single-photon detection. To this end, we conducted...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Anisimova, Elena, Higgins, Brendon L, Bourgoin, Jean-Philippe, Cranmer, Miles, Choi, Eric, Hudson, Danya, Piche, Louis P, Scott, Alan, Makarov, Vadim, Jennewein, Thomas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6529048/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31179201
http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epjqt/s40507-017-0062-z
Descripción
Sumario:Single-photon detectors in space must retain useful performance characteristics despite being bombarded with sub-atomic particles. Mitigating the effects of this space radiation is vital to enabling new space applications which require high-fidelity single-photon detection. To this end, we conducted proton radiation tests of various models of avalanche photodiodes (APDs) and one model of photomultiplier tube potentially suitable for satellite-based quantum communications. The samples were irradiated with 106 MeV protons at doses approximately equivalent to lifetimes of 0.6 , 6, 12 and 24 months in a low-Earth polar orbit. Although most detection properties were preserved, including efficiency, timing jitter and afterpulsing probability, all APD samples demonstrated significant increases in dark count rate (DCR) due to radiation-induced damage, many orders of magnitude higher than the 200 counts per second (cps) required for ground-to-satellite quantum communications. We then successfully demonstrated the mitigation of this DCR degradation through the use of deep cooling, to as low as [Formula: see text] . This achieved DCR below the required 200 cps over the 24 months orbit duration. DCR was further reduced by thermal annealing at temperatures of +50 to [Formula: see text] .