Absolute calibration of analog photodetectors using a biphoton field

А. А. Малыгин, Alexander N. Penin, Alexander V. Sergienko

吕亮 Lü Liang, 张寅超 Zhang Yinchao, 林延东 Lin Yandong

Meng-Chang Wu, Brian Anderson, Bonnie L. Schmittberger +2 more

Alexander N. Penin, Alexander V. Sergienko

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. Czitrovszky, Alexander V. Sergienko

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.

Daniil A. Safronenkov, Pavel A. Prudkovskii, A. V. Osipenkov +1 more

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.