An experimental investigation into impact ionization in InAs photodiodes is presented. Photomultiplication measurements on p-i-n and n-i-p diodes show that while high avalanche gains can be obtained for electron initiated multiplication, there is virtually no gain with hole initiated multiplication. This indicates that the electron ionization coefficient is significantly greater than the hole ionization coefficient raising the possibility of extremely low noise InAs avalanche photodiodes when gain is initiated by electrons. The onset of electron initiated impact ionization was detectable at electric fields below 10 kV cm(-1) with useful gain observed at biases below 10 V. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.