• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.176-183
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• 2013

In this paper, we report the design, fabrication and characterization of the 3-Dimensional optical receiver for a Laser Detection And Ranging (LADAR) system. The optical receiver is composed of three parts; $16{\pm}16$ Geiger Mode InGaAs Avalanche Photodiode (APD) array device operated at 1560 nm wavelength, Read Out Integrated Circuit (ROIC) measuring the Time-Of-Flight (TOF) of the return signal reflected from target objects, a package and cooler maintaining the proper operational condition of the detector and control electronics. We can confirm that the LADAR system can detect the signal from a target up to 1.2 km away, and it showed low Dark Count Rate (DCR) of less than 140 kHz, and higher than 28%-Photon Detection Efficiency (PDE). This is considered to be the best performance of the $16{\pm}16$ FPA APD optical receiver for a LADAR system.