Single-Photon Detection Instrumentation and Applications II

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, we have witnessed an impressive increase in interest in single-photon detection, which has been boosted by two key aspects: The huge improvements in the performance of single-photon detection instrumentation and the appearance of new industrial and scientific applications. These two aspects have acted synergistically. On the one hand, technical improvements have made possible and have stimulated the use of single-photon techniques in new fields; on the other hand, emerging applications have pushed for better performance and new functionalities.

There are many technical advancements that have made this change of pace possible. Among them are the general improvements in single-photon avalanche diodes’ (SPAD) performance, which can be ascribed to new structures, better design, and improved fabrication techniques; the successful adoption of CMOS technologies for the fabrication of large arrays of SPADs with smart pixels and advanced functionalities; the introduction of low-noise, high-efficiency silicon photomultipliers (SiPM); the development of compact, multi-channel, time-correlated, single-photon counting electronics; and the fabrication of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPD) with performances that are close to ideal.

Despite the tremendous progress of the last few years, a lot still has to be done to comply with the stringent requirements of applications like laser ranging, medical imaging, quantum-secure communication, time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy, quantum computing, and many more.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect contributions outlining recent advances in single-photon detection instrumentation, as well as their building blocks and applications. Papers on single-photon detectors, electronics for photon counting/timing, complete single-photon detection systems, and applications are welcome. Topics of interests include, but are not limited to, the following aspects of single-photon detection:

• Design, modeling and experimental characterization of detectors, circuits, and systems.
•  Fabrication technology, especially for detectors.
•  Packaging and optical coupling.
•  Architectures and algorithms for efficient data processing.
• Application examples and requirements.

Prof. Dr. Angelo Gulinatti
Guest Editor

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• single photon detection
• photon counting
• photon timing
• time-correlated single photon counting
• SPAD, SiPM, SNSPD, TDC, LiDAR, QKD
• time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy
• quantum information processing

• Single-Photon Detection Instrumentation and Applications in Instruments (4 articles)