Development of LabVIEW Program Using SR400 Gated Photon Counter for Continuous Data Acquisition and Analysis

Abstract

The photon-counting technique is used where light intensity is extremely low (i.e., in the range of pW to nW) and widely applied in the field of meteorology, space, biotechnology, quantum information, and medical. Various quantum metrology laboratories and research institutes working in the low-intensity light measurement use commercially available SR400 gated photon-counting systems due to their high-count rates (200\xa0MHz) and ability to detect pulses of the order of up to 5\xa0ns. Low-level light detectors (such as photomultiplier tube and avalanche photodiode) generate a discrete pulse output. The manual counting of these pulses from the photon counter is both time-consuming and challenging. This article reports the instrument control LabVIEW program designed to operate the two gates (A and B) of the SR400 gated photon counter. Histogram plot, mean count, standard deviation, and type A uncertainty calculation features are incorporated. This program is useful for photon-counting applications where continuous monitoring and relative variations need to be studied, which is not possible with the standalone SR400.