Photodetectors: Devices, Circuits, and Applications

This book mainly describes optical-to-electronic conversion phenomena, from physical and theoretical viewpoints: i.e. devices, related circuits, and applications such as photocathodes, photomultipliers, semiconductor photodetectors, solar cells, image detectors (CCD), detection regime and figure merit and thermal detection. The majority of the contents are based on the author's lecture notes for electronic engineers, especially those following a graduate Masters course. The book is useful to the design engineer looking for practical hints, solutions and applications, because it starts with simple ideas and develops them into a wide range of topics. For readers interested in applications it can be helpful for them to skip the mathematical derivations and go directly to the results. It is regrettable there are not sufficient references to aid understanding of the definitions and equations. This book also offers a rather wide coverage of photodetectors from the point of view of devices, circuits and applications. Engineers and physicists may use it as a guide to choosing solutions and in evaluating the achievable performances in a practical photodetection problem.