Limits of Trap-assisted Photomultiplication Gain

Abstract: Photodiodes based on trap-assisted current injection can exhibit internal photomultiplication with apparent quantum efficiencies far exceeding unity, raising the question of whether such gain fundamentally enhances detector sensitivity. We employ a minimal analytical framework based on a single gain-active trapped state coupling photogenerated carriers to contact injection. The gain is intrinsically self-limiting: the injection process that amplifies the current simultaneously accelerates relaxation of the gain-enabling state, producing an inherently nonlinear, operating-point-dependent response. The form of this nonlinearity is not universal -- once the trap level is generalized to an energetic distribution and recombination is allowed to be bimolecular, the same mechanism yields superlinear, linear, or strongly sublinear responses. A single chord gain is therefore not a meaningful device descriptor, and chord-gain comparisons across the literature conflate devices in different regimes. Treating trap occupancy and injection as coupled stochastic processes, we show that internal gain introduces a strictly non-negative fluctuation penalty from the dissipative dynamics that sustain the gain state. A local, small-signal detectivity exhibits a finite optimum yet cannot exceed the intrinsic thermodynamic limit of the underlying unity-gain photodiode. Gain is thus equivalent to driven stochastic amplification: it can suppress downstream readout noise, but cannot reduce the fundamental noise floor set by the primary photodetection process.