10 ps resolution, 160 ns full scale range and less than 1.5% differential non-linearity time-to-digital converter module for high performance timing measurements

We present a compact high performance time-to-digital converter (TDC) module that provides 10 ps timing resolution, 160 ns dynamic range and a differential non-linearity better than 1.5% LSBrms. The TDC can be operated either as a general-purpose time-interval measurement device, when receiving external START and STOP pulses, or in photon-timing mode, when employing the on-chip SPAD (single photon avalanche diode) detector for detecting photons and time-tagging them. The instrument precision is 15 psrms (i.e., 36 psFWHM) and in photon timing mode it is still better than 70 psFWHM. The USB link to the remote PC allows the easy setting of measurement parameters, the fast download of acquired data, and their visualization and storing via an user-friendly software interface. The module proves to be the best candidate for a wide variety of applications such as: fluorescence lifetime imaging, time-of-flight ranging measurements, time-resolved positron emission tomography, single-molecule spectroscopy, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, diffuse optical tomography, optical time-domain reflectometry, quantum optics, etc.