Single-photon generation and detection

Abstract

The detection and generation of single photons has seen an upsurge in interest in recent years as new scientific fields of research, for example quantum information processing, have been established. This review serves to provide an overview of progress in these areas, describing some of the main candidates for single-photon components for use in emerging fields of research.

Time-Correlated Single-Photon Counting Range Profiling of Moving Objects

“…These are typically presented as histograms with time bins on the x-axis and counts on the yaxis. The number of detected laser pulses should be less than 5% in order to avoid detector "pileup" effects and fulfil the Poisson statistic requirements [2]. This enables usage of very low laser power that may be an advantage for some applications and facilitates meeting eye-safety requirements.…”

Picosecond wide-field time-correlated single photon counting fluorescence microscopy with a delay line anode detector

“…Single photon detection and timing capabilities are important in a number of fields such as fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy, lidar, optical tomography, and quantum cryptography. [1][2][3][4] Time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC), in particular, is a precise, reliable, and mature technique to time photon arrival. Its widespread use is due to advantages afforded by its digital nature and includes a high dynamic range, high sensitivity, linearity, well-defined Poisson statistics, and easy visualization of photon arrival time data.…”

Practical photon number detection with electric field-modulated silicon avalanche photodiodes

“…In combination with parametric down-conversion sources, photon number detection can also be used for the generation and conditioning of photonic Fock states 10 , as well as more complex quantum light states 11 . Furthermore, many applications beyond pure quantum information processing, such as quantum imaging 12 , tomography 13,14 and interferometry 15 , have been suggested to require error-free photon number detection, and extensive efforts [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] have therefore been devoted to developing photon number resolving detectors.…”

“…In contrast, avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are a mature technology for single-photon detection, which operate close to room temperature, can be fabricated using standard semiconductor processing techniques and are ideal for integration into solid state quantum information processors. As a binary device, APDs used in the so-called Geiger mode, which are also known as single-photon avalanche diodes 21 , have naturally been used as basic building blocks through multiplexing, temporally [22][23][24] or spatially [25][26][27] . In particular, silicon photomultipliers are based on high-density arrays of discrete singlephoton avalanche diodes, each with their own quenching circuit, which are monolithically integrated into a single chip and coupled electrically using external metallic connections.…”