Two-photon imaging with silicon photomultipliers
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Kaspar Podgorski; Mehrab N Modi; Glenn C. Turner; Kayvon Daie
- Source
- Optics express. 27(24)
- Subject
- Physics
Photomultiplier
Neural activity
Photon
Optics
Silicon photomultiplier
Two-photon excitation microscopy
business.industry
Medical imaging
business
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Pulse height
Voltage
- Language
- ISSN
- 1094-4087
We compared performance of recently developed silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) to GaAsP photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) for two-photon imaging of neural activity. Despite higher dark counts, SiPMs match or exceed the signal-to-noise ratio of PMTs at photon rates encountered in typical calcium imaging experiments due to their low pulse height variability. At higher photon rates encountered during high-speed voltage imaging, SiPMs substantially outperform PMTs.