PMID- 27869857
OWN - NLM
STAT- PubMed-not-MEDLINE
DCOM- 20180126
LR  - 20181023
IS  - 1539-4522 (Electronic)
IS  - 1559-128X (Linking)
VI  - 55
IP  - 33
DP  - 2016 Nov 20
TI  - Increasing the collection efficiency of time-correlated single-photon counting 
      with single-photon avalanche diodes using immersion lenses.
PG  - 9555-9562
LID - 10.1364/AO.55.009555 [doi]
AB  - Single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) achieving high timing resolution 
      ( approximately 20-50  ps) developed for time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) 
      generally have very small photosensitive areas (25-100 mum in diameter). This 
      limits the achievable photon counting rate and signal-to-noise ratio and may lead 
      to long counting times. This is detrimental in applications requiring several 
      measurements, such as fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) microscopy, which 
      requires scanning, and time-domain diffuse optical tomography (TD-DOT). We show 
      in this work that the use of an immersion lens directly affixed onto the 
      photosensitive area of the SPAD helps alleviate this problem by allowing more 
      light to be concentrated onto the detector. Following careful optical design and 
      simulations, our experimental results show that it is actually possible to 
      achieve the predicted theoretical increase in the photon counting rate (we 
      achieve a factor of  approximately 4 here). This work is of high relevance in high timing 
      resolution TCSPC with small photosensitive area detectors and should find 
      widespread interest in FLIM and TD-DOT with SPADs.
FAU - Pichette, Charles
AU  - Pichette C
FAU - Giudice, Andrea
AU  - Giudice A
FAU - Thibault, Simon
AU  - Thibault S
FAU - Berube-Lauziere, Yves
AU  - Berube-Lauziere Y
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PL  - United States
TA  - Appl Opt
JT  - Applied optics
JID - 0247660
EDAT- 2016/11/22 06:00
MHDA- 2016/11/22 06:01
CRDT- 2016/11/22 06:00
PHST- 2016/11/22 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2016/11/22 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2016/11/22 06:01 [medline]
AID - 354719 [pii]
AID - 10.1364/AO.55.009555 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Appl Opt. 2016 Nov 20;55(33):9555-9562. doi: 10.1364/AO.55.009555.