一种用于固体成像的单光子采样结构
A single-photon sampling architecture for solid-state imaging
摘要：
固态技术的进步使得能够开发能够感测单个光子的硅光电倍增管传感器阵列。结合高频时间数字转换器（TDC），该技术开辟了能够高精度记录每个探测到的光子的时间和位置的传感器的前景。这种能力可以显著提高成像精度，特别是对于使用低光子通量操作的应用，例如LiDAR和正电子发射断层扫描。对片上读出电路的要求在填充因子和时空分辨率之间进行了严格的权衡，导致许多当代设计严重未充分利用该技术的全部潜力。集中在低光子通量设置，本文利用组测试的结果，并提出了一种架构，用于高效读出像素，只使用少量的TDC，从而也降低了成本和功耗。该设计依赖于基于二进制互连矩阵的多路复用技术。我们为各种传感器参数提供了这些矩阵的优化实例，并给出了唯一解码给定最大数量的同时光子到达所需的TDC数量的明确上限和下限。为了说明所提出的架构的强度，我们注意到一个典型的数字化结果的120 × 120光电二极管传感器上的30 μ m × 30 μ m间距与40 ps的时间分辨率和估计的填充因子约为70%，仅使用161 TDC。该设计保证注册和唯一恢复多达4个同时光子到达使用快速解码算法。在临床正电子发射断层扫描中闪烁事件的一系列真实模拟中，该设计能够恢复导致像素发射的所有光子的98.6%的时空位置。
英文摘要：
Advances in solid-state technology have enabled the development of silicon photomultiplier sensor arrays capable of sensing individual photons. Combined with high-frequency time-to-digital converters (TDCs), this technology opens up the prospect of sensors capable of recording with high accuracy both the time and location of each detected photon. Such a capability could lead to significant improvements in imaging accuracy, especially for applications operating with low photon fluxes such as LiDAR and positron emission tomography. The demands placed on on-chip readout circuitry imposes stringent trade-offs between fill factor and spatio-temporal resolution, causing many contemporary designs to severely underutilize the technology's full potential. Concentrating on the low photon flux setting, this paper leverages results from group testing and proposes an architecture for a highly efficient readout of pixels using only a small number of TDCs, thereby also reducing both cost and power consumption. The design relies on a multiplexing technique based on binary interconnection matrices. We provide optimized instances of these matrices for various sensor parameters and give explicit upper and lower bounds on the number of TDCs required to uniquely decode a given maximum number of simultaneous photon arrivals. To illustrate the strength of the proposed architecture, we note a typical digitization result of a 120x120 photodiode sensor on a 30um x 30um pitch with a 40ps time resolution and an estimated fill factor of approximately 70%, using only 161 TDCs. The design guarantees registration and unique recovery of up to 4 simultaneous photon arrivals using a fast decoding algorithm. In a series of realistic simulations of scintillation events in clinical positron emission tomography the design was able to recover the spatio-temporal location of 98.6% of all photons that caused pixel firings.
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