Ultrafast time measurements by time-correlated single photon counting coupled with superconducting single photon detector

V Shcheslavskiy; P Morozov; A Divochiy; Yu Vakhtomin; K Smirnov; W Becker

doi:10.1063/1.4948920

Ultrafast time measurements by time-correlated single photon counting coupled with superconducting single photon detector

Rev Sci Instrum. 2016 May;87(5):053117. doi: 10.1063/1.4948920.

Authors

V Shcheslavskiy¹, P Morozov², A Divochiy², Yu Vakhtomin², K Smirnov², W Becker¹

Affiliations

¹ Becker & Hickl GmbH, Nahmitzer Damm 30, 12277 Berlin, Germany.
² Scontel, Rossolimo St., 5/22-1, Moscow 119021, Russian Federation.

PMID: 27250402
DOI: 10.1063/1.4948920

Abstract

Time resolution is one of the main characteristics of the single photon detectors besides quantum efficiency and dark count rate. We demonstrate here an ultrafast time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) setup consisting of a newly developed single photon counting board SPC-150NX and a superconducting NbN single photon detector with a sensitive area of 7 × 7 μm. The combination delivers a record instrument response function with a full width at half maximum of 17.8 ps and system quantum efficiency ∼15% at wavelength of 1560 nm. A calculation of the root mean square value of the timing jitter for channels with counts more than 1% of the peak value yielded about 7.6 ps. The setup has also good timing stability of the detector-TCSPC board.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't