Time tagging individual photons with a low-cost FPGA based time to digital converter

Genady Pilyavsky; Adrian Sinclair; Eric Weeks; Caleb Wheeler; Emily Lunde; Philip Mauskopf

doi:10.1117/12.2313815

Time tagging individual photons with a low-cost FPGA based time to digital converter

Genady Pilyavsky, Adrian Sinclair, Eric Weeks, Caleb Wheeler, Emily Lunde, Philip Mauskopf

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

We describe a custom time-to-digital converter (TDC) designed to time tag individual photons from multiple single photon detectors with high count rate, continuous data logging and low systematics. The instrument utilizes a taped-delay line approach on an FPGA chip which allows for sub-clock resolution of <100 ps. We implemented our TDC on a Re-configurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware Revision 2 (ROACH2) board which allows continuous data streaming and time tagging of up to 20 million events per second. The functioning prototype is currently set up to work with up to ten independent channels. We report on the laboratory characterization of the system, including RF pick up and mitigation as well as measurement of in-lab photon correlations from an incoherent light source (artificial star). Additional improvements to the TDC will also be discussed, such as improving the data transfer rate by a factor of 10 via an SDP+ Mezzanine card and PCIE 2SFP+ 10 Gb card, as well as scaling to 64 independent channels.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI
Editors	Peter G. Tuthill, Michelle J. Creech-Eakman, Antoine Merand
Publisher	SPIE
ISBN (Print)	9781510619555
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313815
State	Published - 2018
Event	2018 Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI - Austin, United States Duration: Jun 11 2018 → Jun 15 2018

Publication series

Name	Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume	10701
ISSN (Print)	0277-786X
ISSN (Electronic)	1996-756X

Other

Other	2018 Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI
Country/Territory	United States
City	Austin
Period	6/11/18 → 6/15/18

Keywords

Hardware
Intensity interferometry
single photons
time to digital converter

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
Condensed Matter Physics
Computer Science Applications
Applied Mathematics
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Access to Document

10.1117/12.2313815

Cite this

Pilyavsky, G., Sinclair, A., Weeks, E., Wheeler, C., Lunde, E., & Mauskopf, P. (2018). Time tagging individual photons with a low-cost FPGA based time to digital converter. In P. G. Tuthill, M. J. Creech-Eakman, & A. Merand (Eds.), Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI Article 107012T (Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering; Vol. 10701). SPIE. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313815

Time tagging individual photons with a low-cost FPGA based time to digital converter. / Pilyavsky, Genady; Sinclair, Adrian; Weeks, Eric et al.
Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI. ed. / Peter G. Tuthill; Michelle J. Creech-Eakman; Antoine Merand. SPIE, 2018. 107012T (Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering; Vol. 10701).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Pilyavsky, G, Sinclair, A, Weeks, E, Wheeler, C, Lunde, E & Mauskopf, P 2018, Time tagging individual photons with a low-cost FPGA based time to digital converter. in PG Tuthill, MJ Creech-Eakman & A Merand (eds), Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI., 107012T, Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, vol. 10701, SPIE, 2018 Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI, Austin, United States, 6/11/18. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313815

Pilyavsky G, Sinclair A, Weeks E, Wheeler C, Lunde E, Mauskopf P. Time tagging individual photons with a low-cost FPGA based time to digital converter. In Tuthill PG, Creech-Eakman MJ, Merand A, editors, Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI. SPIE. 2018. 107012T. (Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering). doi: 10.1117/12.2313815

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title = "Time tagging individual photons with a low-cost FPGA based time to digital converter",

abstract = "We describe a custom time-to-digital converter (TDC) designed to time tag individual photons from multiple single photon detectors with high count rate, continuous data logging and low systematics. The instrument utilizes a taped-delay line approach on an FPGA chip which allows for sub-clock resolution of <100 ps. We implemented our TDC on a Re-configurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware Revision 2 (ROACH2) board which allows continuous data streaming and time tagging of up to 20 million events per second. The functioning prototype is currently set up to work with up to ten independent channels. We report on the laboratory characterization of the system, including RF pick up and mitigation as well as measurement of in-lab photon correlations from an incoherent light source (artificial star). Additional improvements to the TDC will also be discussed, such as improving the data transfer rate by a factor of 10 via an SDP+ Mezzanine card and PCIE 2SFP+ 10 Gb card, as well as scaling to 64 independent channels.",

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author = "Genady Pilyavsky and Adrian Sinclair and Eric Weeks and Caleb Wheeler and Emily Lunde and Philip Mauskopf",

note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank the NSF (Grant No. 1616906) for providing us with the support for this project, Xilinx for their donation of Virtex 6 FPGA chip-set, as well as the CASPER group for developing ROACH2 platform and providing MATLAB/Simulink/VHDL files. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 SPIE.; 2018 Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI ; Conference date: 11-06-2018 Through 15-06-2018",

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AU - Mauskopf, Philip

N1 - Funding Information: We would like to thank the NSF (Grant No. 1616906) for providing us with the support for this project, Xilinx for their donation of Virtex 6 FPGA chip-set, as well as the CASPER group for developing ROACH2 platform and providing MATLAB/Simulink/VHDL files. Publisher Copyright: © 2018 SPIE.

PY - 2018

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N2 - We describe a custom time-to-digital converter (TDC) designed to time tag individual photons from multiple single photon detectors with high count rate, continuous data logging and low systematics. The instrument utilizes a taped-delay line approach on an FPGA chip which allows for sub-clock resolution of <100 ps. We implemented our TDC on a Re-configurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware Revision 2 (ROACH2) board which allows continuous data streaming and time tagging of up to 20 million events per second. The functioning prototype is currently set up to work with up to ten independent channels. We report on the laboratory characterization of the system, including RF pick up and mitigation as well as measurement of in-lab photon correlations from an incoherent light source (artificial star). Additional improvements to the TDC will also be discussed, such as improving the data transfer rate by a factor of 10 via an SDP+ Mezzanine card and PCIE 2SFP+ 10 Gb card, as well as scaling to 64 independent channels.

AB - We describe a custom time-to-digital converter (TDC) designed to time tag individual photons from multiple single photon detectors with high count rate, continuous data logging and low systematics. The instrument utilizes a taped-delay line approach on an FPGA chip which allows for sub-clock resolution of <100 ps. We implemented our TDC on a Re-configurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware Revision 2 (ROACH2) board which allows continuous data streaming and time tagging of up to 20 million events per second. The functioning prototype is currently set up to work with up to ten independent channels. We report on the laboratory characterization of the system, including RF pick up and mitigation as well as measurement of in-lab photon correlations from an incoherent light source (artificial star). Additional improvements to the TDC will also be discussed, such as improving the data transfer rate by a factor of 10 via an SDP+ Mezzanine card and PCIE 2SFP+ 10 Gb card, as well as scaling to 64 independent channels.

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Time tagging individual photons with a low-cost FPGA based time to digital converter

Abstract

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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