Photon arrival timing with sub-camera exposure time resolution in wide-field time-resolved photon counting imaging

We demonstrate that an ultra-fast CMOS camera combined with a photon counting image intensifier can be used to determine photon arrival times well below the exposure time of the camera. We can obtain a time resolution down to around 1% of the exposure time, i.e. of the order of 40 ns with microsecond exposure times. This is achieved by exploiting the invariant phosphor decay of the image intensifier's phosphor screen: Developing a suitable mathematical framework, we show that the relative intensities of the phosphor decay in successive frames following the photon detection uniquely determine the photon arrival time. This approach opens a way to measuring fast luminescence decays in parallel in many pixels. Possible applications include oxygen and ion concentration imaging using probes with luminescence lifetimes in the range of 100 ns to microseconds.