DETECTOR FOR SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL IMAGING OF SINGLE PHOTONS

A photon detector with spatial and temporal resolution capabilities is described. The detector consists of an image intensifier and a positi on-sensitive photomultiplier tube. It has 2.5 X 10(3) resolvable pixel s, a dark count rate of 5 X 10(-2) pixel(-1) s(-1), and a quantum effi ciency of 12% at 670 nm. The maximum data rate for a pixel is 500 kHz, which is also the limit of the entire detector aperture. The absolute time of a single event can be determined to within 100 ns. The single pixel response was found to be linear with incident intensity for sho rt pulses of light containing up to several thousand photons. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.