TECH FOCUS: SINGLE-PHOTON COUNTING
When photon detectors count
We round up the latest single-photon counting detectors, modules and other products for single-photon counting
S
ingle-photon counting is a technique used to count individual photons using a single
photon detector. This emits a pulse of signal for each photon that is detected and the number of pulses is counted, providing an integer number of photons detected per measurement interval. The counting efficiency is determined by the quantum efficiency and the system’s electronic losses. The advantages of photon counting include the elimination of gain noise. It also helps to achieve greater accuracy and precision, in line with seemingly ever- increasing demand from optical measurement methods. Single-photon detection is useful in fields such as optical
26 Electro Optics May 2024
communications, quantum encryption and information science, which need single- photon detection, and need it complete with a high quantum efficiency and precise timing for coincidence detection. It is also used in medical imaging, light detection and ranging, DNA sequencing, astrophysics and materials science, to name a few applications. More recent applications such as lidar and optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR) need very low light levels and photon detecting counters are ideally placed to assist here.
Commercial products Vendors of single-photon counting detectors, modules and other products for single photon counting include Aurea
Technology. The company designs and manufactures high-performance and easy- to-use single-photon counting modules, designed to enable scientists and engineers to measure very low light levels down to a single photon. Aurea also offers an ‘all-in-one’ time correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) module. Becker & Hickl has a
proprietary time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) principle to make TCSPC faster than the existing devices. Its devices are designed to record multi-dimensional photon distributions, time-resolved images, sequences of photon distributions, or multi- dimensional time-tag data. Boston Electrics is the North
American distributor partner for Becker & Hickl; Scontel, a manufacturer of ultra-low noise superconducting single photon counting systems for the visible and near-IR range, and Licel, producer of linear and TCSPC- based hybrid atmospheric probe lidar receiver electronics. ET Enterprises supplies photomultiplier tubes and associated electronics. More recently, the company’s product portfolio expanded to include high QE and compact photomultiplier tubes, low noise, low power consumption high voltage power bases and photodetector modules. This includes a range of high- gain photomultiplier tubes specifically designed for single- photon counting applications. The Excelitas suite of Single-
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