Humidity Degradation Study of Mesa-type Avalanche Photodiodes under Harsh Environmental Stresses

Abstract

Avalanche photodiode is a widely used receiver component due to its high sensitivity and low noise performance. For many applications, the APD chips are required to maintain stable performance against harsh environmental stresses such as high heat and humidity. In this paper, we study the APD moisture degradation behavior under the harsh environment of high humidity (60-75%), high temperature (85°C), and high bias (-32 V). We present empirical acceleration factor form functions of temperature and humidity based on experimental data and provide quantitative analysis on the humidity dependence. The humidity coefficient of the mesa-type APD from exponential fit is estimated to be -0.00137.