Single Photon Counting Performance and Noise Analysis of CMOS SPAD-Based Image Sensors

Abstract

SPAD-based solid state CMOS image sensors utilising analogue integrators have attained deep sub-electron read noise (DSERN) permitting single photon counting (SPC) imaging. A new method is proposed to determine the read noise in DSERN image sensors by evaluating the peak separation and width (PSW) of single photon peaks in a photon counting histogram (PCH). The technique is used to identify and analyse cumulative noise in analogue integrating SPC SPAD-based pixels. The DSERN of our SPAD image sensor is exploited to confirm recent multi-photon threshold quanta image sensor (QIS) theory. Finally, various single and multiple photon spatio-temporal oversampling techniques are reviewed.

Keywords

• single photon avalanche diode
• SPAD
• CMOS image sensor
• CIS
• single photon counting
• SPC
• quanta image sensor
• QIS
• spatio-temporal oversampling