Abstract

By careful attention to minimizing stray capacitance and inductance in the design of a circuit for passive quenching of an avalanche photodiode and suitable for counting single photons, we have succeeded in obtaining a time resolution of about 400 ps. This was measured by a deconvolution method with the help of a pulsed diode laser, an auxiliary PIN diode photodetector, and a time-to-digital converter, all of which have sub-nanosecond time resolution.

© 1992 Optical Society of America