Current students

Quantum-enhanced imaging techniques can enable microscopy with higher sensitivity and resolution, at lower photon numbers, than classically possible. Quantum protocols, using N00N states with N>2 or other nonclassical states of light, require technological advances to reach overall improvements in measurement capacity. In this research, I developed two innovative high-sensitivity and high-resolution Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) arrays with 24 × 24 SPAD pixels, tailored for sparse coincidence event detection. Thanks to either a smart frame-based readout that only transfers useful data or an event-driven scheme to detect and map directly on-chip photon temporal coincidences, they are shown to be speed-optimized sensors for practical quantum advantage demonstrations with respect to classical protocols.

SPADs are forefront candidates also for fluorescence rejection in Time-Gate (TG) Raman spectroscopy. Ultrafast sensors capable of undistorted Raman peak identification enable proteins' sequencing with single amino acid resolution, which could lead to outstanding improvements in many medical fields, from diagnosis to pharmaceutical treatments. To this aim, a linear 16 × 4 SPAD array has been conceived, which allows TG Single-Photon Counting (TG-SPC) in limited time windows (>1 ns) with a high-speed readout process.