Advanced Photonix is the industry leader, developing standard and custom silicon photodetectors and optoelectronic assemblies.

API offers custom LED design and packaging of a variety of emitter configurations and spectral enhancements. From single elements to monolithic arrays, discrete devices to highly engineered complex assemblies; API’s design group is well versed in the circuit and optical integration requirements of both emitter and detector technologies.

A silicon photodiode is a solid-state device that converts light into electric current. It consists of a shallow diffused p-n junction, normally a p-on-n configuration. Modern day silicon photodiodes are generally made by a planar diffused method.

API's Avalanche Photodiodes (APDs) are silicon photodiodes featuring internal gain. As with conventional photodiodes, absorption of incoming photons creates electron-hole pairs, also known as carriers. Because of an APD's internal structure and a much higher reverse bias voltage, a strong internal electric field accelerates the carriers, and these carriers then produce secondary electron-hole pairs by the process of impact ionization. A standard PIN photodiode has unity gain, and an APD produces a gain of up to several hundred. An APD's greatest advantage over traditional photodiodes is improved S/N ratios. The gain of the APD is increased to the optimizing point where the noise of the detector is comparable to the front-end electronics; thereby effectively improving the overall S/N ration. API offers two distinct type of APDs; small area high speed APDs and large area APDs (LAAPDs).