The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
Electromagnetic radiation can be described as a stream of individual photons. In solid-state detectors (e.g., photocathodes or semiconductor photosensors), each photon of sufficient energy creates one or several mobile charge carriers which can be subsequently detected with sensitive electronic circuits, possibly after charge packet multiplication employing the avalanche effect. Two types of noise...
Single photon imaging is an extension of solid state imaging, making use of devices that benefit from the outstanding electro-optical properties of silicon and which have the potential, like CCD and CIS devices before, to benefit from the integration made possible with silicon process technology. This chapter provides an introduction to the functionality of integrated image sensors. It presents the...
A hybrid avalanche photodiode (APD) array is a vacuum tube containing a photocathode and an array of avalanche photodiodes. It is a hybrid device that combines a traditional phototube technology and an advanced semiconductor technology. A photon produces a photoelectron with quantum efficiency at the photocathode. Unlike a phototube with dynodes, multiplication of the photoelectron is provided by...
The low noise electron bombarded semiconductor gain process is now enabling new classes of single photon sensitive, photocathode based, image sensors. These imagers form two broad classes of devices: low pixel count imagers for high temporal bandwidth photon counting applications and high pixel count imagers for single photon sensitive staring applications. The first class of devices has demonstrated...
Some decades ago single photon detection and imaging used to be the terrain of photocathode based devices only. The most prominent devices of this family are photomultiplier tubes (PMT) and image intensifiers. During the past decades these devices lost ground to advanced solid state devices like APDs, low noise CMOS imagers, and EMCCDs. Can one expect solid state devices to totally replace vacuum...
Charge coupled devices utilising electron multiplication (EMCCDs) have been available commercially for almost a decade. Currently they are the image sensors of choice for a wide range of applications requiring ultra high sensitivity whilst maintaining high data rates. Even at low data rates, these can yield benefits for single photon imaging. This chapter reviews the technology behind the EMCCD that...
The art of creating monolithic single-photon photodetectors is a mix of design skills and device physics knowledge, and it requires an understanding of the mechanisms underlying single-photon detection in highly complex integrated systems. This chapter begins with the fundamentals of avalanching, the basics for integration of avalanche photodiodes operating in Geiger-mode, and the issues associated...
This chapter presents the theory and circuitry necessary to build CMOS image sensors with single photon detection capability. The chapter begins with the basic theory of CMOS image sensor photon detection. Then a discussion about additive noise systems and the sources of noise in CMOS image sensors is presented. Signal amplification and bandwidth control in low-noise CMOS image sensors are also discussed...
This chapter discusses various types of signal readout architectures for CMOS image sensors, implementing ultra-low-noise conversion of photo-generated charge packets into digital output values. It is based on a detailed analysis of the different noise sources in a CMOS imager, the noise responses of column noise cancelling circuits using correlated double sampling (CDS) and correlated multiple sampling...
Virtually complete charge transfer can be achieved with charge coupled devices (CCDs) in the buried channel configuration because the buried channel CCD introduces no transfer noise. However, conventional charge detectors incorporated into CCDs have a comparably large noise, which consists of thermal noise and 1/f noise from MOS transistor in the output charge detectors. Highly sensitive double gate...
Energy-sensitive detectors perform asynchronous arrival detection of single X-Ray photons and particles. Their ability of measuring the detected particles’ energy improves the performance of the particle counting applications and enables spectroscopic applications. In such detectors, either a semiconductor layer for direct conversion or a combination of a scintillator and a semiconductor sensing device...
We live in a three-dimensional (3D) world and thanks to the stereoscopic vision provided by our two eyes, in combination with the powerful neural network of the brain we are able to perceive the distance of the objects. Nevertheless, despite the huge market volume of digital cameras, solid-state image sensors can capture only a two-dimensional (2D) projection, of the scene under observation, losing...
Even with the use of powerful optical systems, astronomy and space imaging applications have often to deal with a very limited amount of photons. Despite major achievements brought to these applications by CCD and hybrid narrow gap semiconductor detectors technologies, and as illustrated by large focal planes used in ground based telescopes, the detection limit of classical solid state imaging devices...
Many contemporary biological investigations rely on highly sensitive in vitro assays for the analysis of specific molecules in biological specimens, and the main part of these assays depends on high-sensitivity fluorescence detection techniques for the final readout. The analyzed molecules and molecular interactions in the specimen need to be detected in the presence of other highly abundant biomolecules,...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.