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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Measurement of quantum efficiency of avalanche photodetectors based on quantum two-photon field

A. Czitrovszky, Alexander V. Sergienko

Published Aug 19, 1998• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A pair of rigorously correlated photons (biphotons) from parametric down conversion makes it possible to use them for measuring the absolute value of the quantum efficiency of the optical detectors, both in photon counting and in analog regimes, that does not use any calibrated standard light sources. Using this method the quantum efficiency of EG&G avalanche photodetectors was determined.

DOI
10.1117/12.320959

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A pair of rigorously correlated photons (biphotons) from parametric down conversion makes it possible to use them for measuring the absolute value of the quantum efficiency of the optical detectors, both in photon counting and in analog regimes, that does not use any calibrated standard light sources. Using this method the quantum efficiency of EG&G avalanche photodetectors was determined.
A new method of absolute calibration of photodetectors based on a nonclassical effect in nonlinear optics is discussed. The combined influence of a monochromatic flux of pump photons and quantum vacuum noise on a nonlinear crystal with no center of symmetry results in the appearance of rigorously correlated pairs of photons with continuous spectral distribution in the spontaneous parametric scattering of light (spontaneous parametric downconversion) process. The presence of an optical field in a broad spectral range created by the two-photon states (biphotons) makes it possible to develop a new method of measuring the spectral distribution of the absolute value of the quantum efficiency of photodetectors, both in photon counting and in analog regimes, that does not use any calibrated standard light sources (étalons). The feasibility of the method is demonstrated on different types of photomultiplier tube.
We report the first results obtained at the Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale Galileo Ferraris of quantum-efficiency measurements of actively quenched avalanche photodiodes in the photon-counting regime. The measurements were performed with the technique of correlated photons generated by a parametric downconversion process in a nonlinear crystal of lithium iodate, an absolute technique that does not require any standard. We pay special attention to the problem of alignment of the optical bench and to the implementation of a parametric amplifier scheme with a diode-laser source. The technique is described, and results of quantum-efficiency measurements of two photodiodes are presented.
Single-photon detectors are finding increasingly wide application in all branches of science and technology thus a precise knowledge of their quantum efficiency is an essential prerequisite. We have performed the first proof-of-principle demonstration of a means to determine the quantum efficiency by which no second detector or reference standard is required. This absolute self-calibration method is based on the time correlation of entangled photons pairs emitted in spontaneous parametric down conversion. The measured quantum efficiency of a Si avalanche photodiode single-photon detector agrees well with the product specifications.
Approaches to the standard-free calibration of the quantum efficiency of a wide class of analog detectors based on the measurement of statistical characteristics of fields generated by parametric down-conversion are analyzed. General expressions are obtained for the noise reduction factor of the difference photocurrent and for the covariance of photocurrents in the signal and idler channels that take into account the possibility of strong fluctuations in the amplitudes of single-photon response functions of the detectors used. It is shown that the measurement of the noise reduction factor of the difference photocurrent using detectors that cannot operate in the photon counting mode is on its own insufficient to directly characterize the level of two-mode squeezing in the down-conversion field and to determine the quantum efficiency of photosensitive elements without additional calibration procedures. A method to determine the quantum efficiency of such detectors based on measuring the dependence of the normalized covariance of photocurrents on the parametric gain is proposed.