<title>Recording weak light fluxes by avalanche photodiodes in photon counting mode</title>

The photon counters based on avalanche photodiodes feature a number of advantages, compared with those based on traditional photodetectors-photoelectric multipliers. This is essential when recording weak optical signals of a small duration with subnanosecond time resolution. Photon counting with industrial silicon photodiodes, as well as with the avalanche photodetectors based on a metal-dielectric-semiconductor structure, has been reported with a presentation of their main single-electron characteristics. The aim of this work is to study the quantum efficiency of recording and the threshold sensitivity of avalanche photodiodes in the photon counting mode.