This book covers the latest trends in the design of single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), which are the front-end sensors in modern photon counting systems. The authors describe the fundamental physics that enable photon counting in these devices. They also discuss systems that are made from these detectors, specifically describing circuit architectures that may be used to achieve high-fidelity photon counting. Coverage features example devices and systems designed in the authors’ research groups as well as different approaches undertaken by other experts in the field. The authors take a unique, modular approach that covers every aspect of the design stack, with stand-alone chapters, allowing readers to focus on specific aspects of the technology stack. Coverage includes the device-physics aspects of the detectors, their integration in modern electronics fabrication technologies like CMOS, and application-specific systems that utilize these detectors.

This chapter presents a broad review of the principle, design, fabrication, operation, and performance of single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), and provides a comparative basis to assess the relative merits of the wide variety of devices and techniques covered. Particular attention is paid to the design of and operation of both silicon and high-speed-gated InGaAs/InP detection systems, as well as array-based systems.

Photon counting is a unified name for the techniques using single-photon detection for accumulative measurements of the light flux, normally occurring under extremely low-light conditions. Nowadays, this approach can be applied to the wide variety of the radiation wavelengths, starting from X-ray and deep ultraviolet transitions and ending with far-infrared part of the spectrum. As a special tribute to the photon counting, the studies of cosmic microwave background radiation in astronomy, the experiments with muon detection, and the large-scale fundamental experiments on the nature of matter should be noted. The book provides readers with an overview on the fundamentals and state-of-the-art applications of photon counting technique in the applied science and everyday life.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Photon-Counting Image Sensors" that was published in Sensors

The technique of counting individual photons using single photon detectors is referred to as photon counting. Every time a photon is detected, a signal pulse is emitted by the single photon detectors. The counting efficiency of the device is determined by the quantum efficiency and electronic losses which are inherent in the system. The magnitude of pulses counted gives the total number of photons detected. Photodetectors are classified into Geiger counters, photomultipliers, scintillation counters, single photon avalanche diodes and superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. Photon detection finds applications in many fields such as quantum information science, medical imaging, fiber optic communication, DNA sequencing, astrophysics and materials science. This book includes some of the vital pieces of work being conducted across the world, on various topics related to photon counting. It will also provide interesting topics for research which interested readers can take up. This book will serve as a valuable source of reference for graduate and post graduate students.

Time-correlated Single Photon Counting has been written in the hope that by relating the authors' experiences with a variety of different single photon counting systems, they may provide a useful service to users and potential users of this formidably sensitive technique. Of all the techniques available to obtain information on the rates of depopulation of excited electronic singlet states of molecular species, monitoring of fluorescence provides, in principle, the simplest and most direct measure of concentration. This volume comprises eight chapters, with the first focusing on the time dependence and applications of fluorescence. Succeeding chapters go on to discuss basic principles of the single photon counting lifetime measurement; light sources; photomultipliers; electronics; data analysis; nanosecond time-resolved emission spectroscopy; time dependence of fluorescence anisotropy. This book will be of interest to practitioners in the field of chemistry.