Abstract
We present a digital architecture for fast acquisition of time correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) events from a 32 × 32 complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) single photon avalanche detector (SPAD) array (Megaframe) to the computer memory. Custom firmware was written to transmit event codes from 1024-TCSPCenabled pixels for fast transfer of TCSPC events. Our 1024-channel TCSPC system is capable of acquiring up to 0.5 × 109 TCSPC events per second with 16 histogram bins spanning a 14 ns width. Other options include 320 × 106 TCSPC events per second with 256 histogram bins spanning either a 14 or 56 ns time window. We present a wide-field fluorescence microscopy setup demonstrating fast fluorescence lifetime data acquisition. To the best of our knowledge, this is the fastest direct TCSPC transfer from a single photon counting device to the computer to date.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 4305-4308 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Optics Letters |
Volume | 40 |
Issue number | 18 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 11 Sept 2015 |