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US 5,694,211 AGranted
Light measuring apparatus for quantizing photon
AssigneeLaboratory of Molecular Biophotonics
InventorsShinji Ohsuka, Hisayoshi Takamoto
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
When incident light is incident to a photodetector, photoelectrons are emitted and multiplied in each of incident zones whereby a plurality of current signals are output. These current signals each are processed to estimate a distribution or a mean value of numbers of photoelectrons generated in each incident zone. Then estimated based on the estimate values of respective incident zones is the number of photoelectrons emitted from the entire photoelectric conversion surface. In this way the intensity of incident light is measured with accuracy.
Claims29
A light measuring apparatus comprising:
- photodetection means having a photoelectric conversion surface for emitting photoelectrons in a number according to a photodetection number distribution depending upon a number of photons of incident light, and a plurality of electron multiplier portions provided corresponding to a plurality of zones of said photoelectric conversion surface, each electron multiplier portion multiplying photoelectrons emitted from an associated zone of said photoelectric conversion surface to output a current signal as to said associated zone;
- collecting means for collecting photoelectron occurrence events in the respective zones of said photoelectric conversion surface in a gate period, based on current signals output from said respective electron multiplier portions;
- and
- estimating means for estimating a distribution of numbers of photoelectrons emitted with incidence of measurement-object light in each zone of said photoelectric conversion surface in said gate period, based on collection results by said event collecting means, and thereby obtaining an intensity of the measurement-object light.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.