Noise of a-Si:H Pin Diode Pixels in Imagers at Different Operating Conditions

The noise current spectral density of an a-Si:H pin diode can be calculated with experimentally determined flicker noise coefficients by superposition of the shot and flicker noise spectra of photocurrent and dark current. The dependence of the flicker noise current spectral density in pin diodes on the pixel area is calculated with our expansion of Hooge’s law for flicker noise. We propose a new method for the calculation of dynamic range (DR) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in pin diode pixels as a function of pixel area, dark current, photocurrent and the integration time of the imager. DR and SNR of the pin diodes are calculated for Thin Film on ASIC (TFA) image sensors.