US 11,703,387 B2
Time-resolved single-photon counting apparatus
Sucbei Moon, Seoul (KR)
Assigned to KOOKMIN UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY ACADEMY COOPERATION FOUNDATION, Seoul (KR)
Appl. No. 17/428,435
Filed by KOOKMIN UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY ACADEMY COOPERATION FOUNDATION, Seoul (KR)
PCT Filed Jan. 20, 2020, PCT No. PCT/KR2020/000927
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Aug. 4, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/162669, PCT Pub. Date Aug. 13, 2020.
Claims priority of application No. 10-2019-0014329 (KR), filed on Feb. 7, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0113189 A1, Apr. 14, 2022
Int. Cl. G01J 3/28 (2006.01); G01J 3/10 (2006.01); G01J 3/44 (2006.01)
CPC G01J 3/2889 (2013.01) [G01J 3/10 (2013.01); G01J 3/4406 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A time-resolved single-photon counting apparatus, comprising:
an excitation light source for generating pulsed excitation light;
a specimen optics for collecting an optical signal produced by irradiating the pulsed excitation light to a specimen;
a photoelectric converter for photoelectrically converting the optical signal to generate an analog single-photon signal;
an analog-to-digital (AD) signal converter for sampling the analog single-photon signal to convert the same into a digital single-photon signal;
a digital photon-discrimination and timing detector for generating a photon-discrimination signal by discriminating the single-photon property of the digital single-photon signal and generating a delay time signal having delay time information by measuring a pulse time point of the digital single-photon signal; and
a time-signal processor for counting valid single-photon detection events according to the delay time with reference to the photon-discrimination signal,
wherein the digital photon-discrimination and timing detector generates a photon-discrimination signal obtained by discriminating the single-photon property for the digital single-photon signal based on the characteristics of a temporal voltage waveform provided by the digital single-photon signal,
wherein the delay time information is relative time information of a pulse time point of the digital single-photon signal with respect to a pulse generation time point of the pulsed excitation light, and
wherein the time-signal processor discriminates as the valid single-photon detection event when the photon-discrimination information is in the state of a true single-photon property or single-photon detection.