The design and characterisation of arrays of single photon avalanche diodes(SPAD) is presented. The performance of the devices make them suitable in many applications, like single-photom imaging for microelectronic investigation and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. A new problem arising from the integration of SPADs is the optical crosstalk between adjacent pixels, due to the secondary photons emitted by an avalanching junction. This effect is quatitatively investigated and a trench isolation process is proposed for elminating it and opening the way to the fabrication of monolithic 2-D matrix with parallel read-out.
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