Visible Light Photon Counter (original) (raw)

A Visible Light Photon Counter (VLPC) is a photon counting photodetector based on impurity-band conduction in arsenic-doped silicon. They have high quantum efficiency and are able to detect single photons in the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The ability to count the exact number of photons detected is extremely important for quantum key distribution. VLPCs have been used extensively in the central tracking detector of the D0 experiment, and for muon beam-cooling studies for a muon collider (MICE). They have also been evaluated for quantum information science.