From Evolution to Prospects: Mechanisms, Advances, and Challenges of Avalanche Photodiodes
Annotatsiya
In applications such as LiDAR, quantum communication, biomedical imaging, and telecommunications, avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are a main component enabling highly sensitive optical detection. This review, with a particular focus on important architectures such as RAPD, SAM, SACM, and SAGCM, examines their development from early bulk semiconductors to modern heterostructures and new two-dimensional (2D) materials. The impact of structural innovations on the enhancement, noise, and bandwidth optimization for photon-trapping nanostructures, multiple quantum wells, and superlattices is evaluated. An analysis of the remaining problems related to material quality, lattice matching, manufacturing accuracy, and smooth integration of CMOS is conducted. In conclusion, the prospects are discussed, with particular attention given to dual-gain architectures, silicon photonics integration, 2D platforms, and AI-assisted TCAD methods for rapid defect-aware device optimization. This article presents a consolidated roadmap for improving the performance of APDs in next-generation optoelectronic systems.