Measurement of the timing jitter of a low-noise single photon detector

The article puts forward a technique for measuring the time jitter of a single photon detector (SPD). The proposed method does not require high-speed electronics and short optical pulses. The procedure involves experimental measurement of the time delays of the SPD response to short weak optical pulses of variable duration applied to its input. In this case, the optical pulse duration may exceed the measured jitter value. The results of measuring the time jitter of a low-noise SPD using an avalanche photodiode (manufactured by RMY Electronics) have been presented and compared with a commercially available ID Quantique IDQube-NIR-GAT-MMF-LN detector. Our experimental studies have proved the success of the proposed time jitter measurement technique.