{"id":127641,"date":"2021-09-13T21:23:55","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T04:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/time-magnified-photon-counting-with-550-fs-resolution"},"modified":"2021-09-13T21:23:55","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T04:23:55","slug":"time-magnified-photon-counting-with-550-fs-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/time-magnified-photon-counting-with-550-fs-resolution","title":{"rendered":"Time-magnified photon counting with 550-fs resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Time-resolved photon counting plays an indispensable role in precision metrology in both classical and quantum regimes. Therein, time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) [1<\/a>] has been the key enabling technology for applications such as fluorescence lifetime microscopy [2<\/a>], time-gated Raman spectroscopy [3<\/a>], photon counting time-of-flight (ToF) 3D imaging [4<\/a>], light-in-flight imaging [5<\/a>], and computational diffuse optical tomography [6<\/a>]. For all these applications, one of the most important figures of merit is the single-photon timing resolution (SPTR, also referred to as photon counting timing jitter). The TCSPC SPTR is limited by the available single-photon detectors. For example, photomultiplier tubes typically provide an SPTR larger than 100 ps [7<\/a>]. Meanwhile, superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors have superior SPTR in the sub-10-ps range [8<\/a>, 9<\/a>]. However, cryogenic cooling significantly increases the system complexity. Single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) operate at moderate temperature, which makes them a popular choice for various applications mentioned above. Nevertheless, their SPTR is still limited to tens-of-picoseconds level [10<\/a>]. On the other hand, orders-of-magnitude enhancement on SPTR is required for many challenging applications such as the study of ultrafast fluorescent decay dynamics [11<\/a>,12<\/a>].<\/p>\n

In this Letter, we demonstrate a time-magnified TCSPC (TM-TCSPC) that achieves an ultrashort SPTR of 550 fs using an off-the-shelf single-photon detector. The key component is a quantum temporal magnifier using a low-noise high-efficiency fiber parametric time lens [13<\/a>,14<\/a>] based on four-wave mixing Bragg scattering (FWM-BS) [15 <\/a>\u2013 17<\/a>]. A temporal magnification of 130 with a 97% photon conversion efficiency has been achieved while maintaining the quantum coherence of the signal under test (SUT). Detection sensitivity of -{95}\\;rm{dBm}$ (0.03 photons per pulse), limited by the spontaneous Raman scattering noise, is possible and allows efficient processing and characterization of quantum-level SUT. The TM-TCSPC can resolve ultrashort pulses with a 130-fs pulse width difference at a 22-fs accuracy. When applied to photon counting ToF 3D imaging, the TM-TCSPC greatly suppresses the range walk error (RWE) that limits all photon counting ToF 3D imaging systems by 99.2% (130 times) and thus provides high depth measurement accuracy and precision of 26 \u00b5m and 3 \u00b5m, respectively. The TM-TCSPC is a promising solution for photon counting at the femtosecond regime that will benefit various research fields such as fluorescence lifetime microscopy, time-gated Raman spectroscopy, light-in-flight imaging, and computational diffuse optical tomography.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time-resolved photon counting plays an indispensable role in precision metrology in both classical and quantum regimes. Therein, time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) [1] has been the key enabling technology for applications such as fluorescence lifetime microscopy [2], time-gated Raman spectroscopy [3], photon counting time-of-flight (ToF) 3D imaging [4], light-in-flight imaging [5], and computational diffuse optical tomography [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,4,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-nanotechnology","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}