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Soviet Journal of Quantum Electronics

Use of two-photon light for absolute calibration of photoelectric detectors

Давид Николаевич Клышко

Published Sep 30, 1980• 235 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A description is given of a method for calibrating photodetectors based on some characteristics of the statistics of the field of spontaneous parametric light scattering. A phenomenological theory of parametric scattering is used to demonstrate that photons are only emitted in pairs. It is shown that, in principle, a priori information on the two-photon character and directionality of parametrically scattered light can be used for absolute calibration of photodetectors operated both in the analog linear regime and in the discrete photoelectron pulse counting regime.

DOI
10.1070/qe1980v010n09abeh010660

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•Jan 1, 1967•1 citation
A description is given of a method for calibrating photodetectors based on some characteristics of the statistics of the field of spontaneous parametric light scattering. A phenomenological theory of parametric scattering is used to demonstrate that photons are only emitted in pairs. It is shown that, in principle, a priori information on the two-photon character and directionality of parametrically scattered light can be used for absolute calibration of photodetectors operated both in the analog linear regime and in the discrete photoelectron pulse counting regime.
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.
A new method of absolute calibration of photodetector sensitivity based on spontaneous parametric down\|conversion(SPDC) biphoton field is described.The process of SPDC is studied theoretically.The single photon detection probability and two\|photon coincidence probability are derived and the calibration principle for photodetectors is explained.An experimental system has been set up.The sensitivity of a photon\|counting photomultiplier tube was measured,and the results were compared with those obtained using conventional method.
A description is given of an optimal system for parametric conversion of one-photon light into a two-photon field. This system is suitable for absolute calibration of photodetectors throughout the visible range without the use of a standard source for comparison. Tuning curves of such a parametric converter are calculated and verified experimentally. The efficiency achieved in this method of generation of a two-photon field (10 6 of two-photon pairs per second in a spectral band Δ ν = 10 cm −1 wide) makes it possible to calibrate photodetectors to within at least 3–4% after accumulation of a signal for a time of the order of 100 sec.
A modified Klyshko method for standardless calibration of analog photodetector efficiencies is suggested and experimentally implemented. The method is based on the measurement of the number of incident photons using correlation properties of biphotons generated under spontaneous parametric downconversion, and on the determination of the mean number of discrete elementary responses of a photodetector by deconvoluting the statistical distribution of the output photocurrents. As an example, the generalized efficiency of an analog photomultiplier is measured as the ratio of the average number of elementary current responses to the average number of incident photons. The statistical properties of the elementary responses of an analog photodetector depend not only on the detector itself, but also on the parameters of the subsequent electronic circuit. Nevertheless, it has been shown that the generalized efficiency determined by this way allows one to calibrate the photon fluxes by the analog photodetector without involvement of any reference sources or detectors.
A relation is derived between the probability distribution of the integrated intensity of light incident on a photoelectric detector and that of the emission of n photoelectrons in a time interval (t, t + T) from the properties of a quantized electromagnetic field. Both the direct and the inverse relations are derived, thereby enabling the statistical properties of light to be determined from photoelectric measurements. An explicit expression is given for the coefficients for calculating the moments ( W k) by means of the moments (n J) (] = 1, 2 ..... k). The correctness of the operations in which generalized functions occur is confirmed by some direct calculations. The significance of photoelectric detectors has been increasing of late. Since their response is proportional to the intensity of incident light (to the square of the amplitude of light) (more exactly, to the local mean time value of the intensity), one speaks of quadratic detectors. These detectors are of basic importance in the theory of the coherence of the electromagnetic field, since if we place N such detectors into N different points in space and if we lead the outputs of these detectors to the correlator we can measure the correlation (coherence) effects of the 2N-th order in the given field [1]. Such correlation measurements provide information on the energy distribution in the radiation spectrum [2], the angular dimensions of stars [3], and the state of polarization [4] and also enable the phase of physically important functions (e.g. the scattering amplitudes) [5] to be determined. Although in such experiments the properties of photoelectrons are studied rather than of photons, they reflect the basic properties of photons. Let the probability distribution Of the emission of n photoelectrons in a time interval (t, t + T) be p(n, T, t) - p(n) and let the probability distribution of the quantity W(T, t) = W = J'tt+r I(t') dr', where I(t) is the intensity of linearly polarized light incident on the photodetector (for simplicity we assume that the sensitivity of the photocathode is a = 1), be P(W). The quantity W can be regarded as a classical characteristic of the field, the quantity n represents the quantum characteristic of the field. Then, on the basis of such a semi-classical description, in which the field is described classically, but its interaction is described quantum-wise, one can derive the following relation [6]