Streaming time converters Swabian TimeTagger et al.

The devices of the TimeTagger family manufactured by Swabian Instruments are streaming time-digital converters and logic analyzers designed for counting time-correlated single photons, measuring time intervals, counting coincidences, etc. Powerful software distinguishes them from a similar class of devices and makes them indispensable when working in areas such as microscopy of molecules with time resolution, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, experiments in the field of quantum physics with single photons and analysis based on the exact time protocol.

Key Hardware Features:

• Temporary resolution up to 3 ps (RMS jitter).
• The minimum digitization step is 1 ps.
• 8 or 18 identical input channels on one board, the ability to synchronize up to 144 channels.
• Determination of the boundaries of the rise and decrease of the signal.
• Built-in logic analyzer.
• Supports all available photon detectors: SPAD, PMT, HPD, SNSPD.

Key features of the software:

• Optimal methods for constructing autocorrelation functions, cross-correlation functions and start-stop histograms.
• Counting multiple matches between any combination of input channels.
• The ability to simultaneously carry out independent measurements.
• The ability to create additional data streams in real time using virtual channels, which can be, for example, combined, matched or filtered data from existing physical channels.
• Graphical user interface implemented as a cross-platform web application, and proprietary software libraries of experimental methods and classes for Python, Matlab, LabVIEW, C/C++, C#, .NET and Wolfram Mathematica.
• Work on operating systems: Windows 7 & 10, Linux (Cent OS and Ubuntu).

Applications:

• Time-Correlated Single-Photon Counting (TCSPC).
• Visualization of the lifetime of fluorescence (Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging – FLIM).
• Single–photon microscopy - defects in solids (impurity centers), quantum dots, single molecules.
• Photonics-based quantum computing and optical quantum circuits (chips).
• High–resolution microscopy - STED, PALM, STORM.
• Experiments with cold atoms, Rydberg atoms.
• Cold ions, trapped ions and quantum computing based on them.

Models: Time Tagger 20, Time Tagger Ultra, Time Tagger X.