Photon counting imaging with an electron-bombarded CCD: Towards wide-field time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC)

Single photon detecting capabilities of an electron-bombarded CCD (EBCCD), where a photon is converted into a photoelectron that is accelerated through a high voltage before hitting the CCD chip, were characterised. The photon event pulse height distribution was found to be linearly dependent on the gain voltage. Based on these results, we propose that a gain voltage sweep during exposure in an EBCCD or EBCMOS camera would allow photon arrival time determination from the photon event pulse height with sub-frame exposure time resolution. This effectively uses an electron-bombarded sensor as a parallel-processing photoelectronic time-to-amplitude converter (TAC), or a 2-dimensional streak camera. Several applications that require timing of photon arrival, including fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM), may benefit from this approach. Moreover, the EBCCD was used on a fluorescence microscope to image fluorescently labelled cells in single photon counting mode.