Techniques for CMOS single photon imaging and processing

The world is not analog: it is actually a quantum world. Understanding how to sense and model macroscopic phenomena using the quantum paradigm has enabled breakthroughs in a number of disciplines from computer vision to human-computer interfaces, but it has an even greater potential in telecommunications, computing, minimally invasive medical diagnostic, and bio-imaging. With the integration of single photon detectors (SPDs) in CMOS technology, the design of scalable, ultra-fast single photon imagers has become possible. Due to the digital nature of SPDs, imagers may be significantly simplified with the elimination of traditional components such as amplifiers, S/Hs, and ADCs as well as complex readout schemes and 1/f or FPN suppression techniques. In this paper we discuss SPD based sensors and the architectural challenges posed by the quantum paradigm in CMOS integrated circuits. We introduce basic solid-state physics underlying SPDs and discuss several modeling issues