Established in 2015, Photon Force is a leading provider of single-photon sensitive cameras and sensors. The company operates worldwide to deliver the highest throughput, fastest time-resolved single-photon counting technology on the market.
Interview with Ryan Warburton, Application Engineer at Photon Force.
What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Ryan Warburton: Photon Force products and technologies are used across a wide range of sectors to enable ultra-fast, Time-Correlated Single-Photon Counting (TCSPC) with the ability to count and timestamp photons with picosecond accuracy.
Our cameras and sensors are primarily used in research and development in industry and academia; specifically in photonics, quantum applications, and bio-photonics to aid cutting-edge research and next-generation technologies.
What’s the news about new products/services?
R.W: The Photon Force team continually innovates to extend and enhance our technologies’ capabilities. Recent product developments include a firmware upgrade to provide on-board histogramming, which allows nearly 3x speed in streaming data to users’ PCs.
Additionally, we are excited for the introduction of an OEM module to the PF32 camera range. This compact device helps to maximise frame rates and minimise latency, while coming in a size suitable for building into low Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) production systems. This enables easier integration across the sectors we serve.
What are the ranges of products/services?
R.W: Photon Force products include the PF32 SPAD array camera range and custom sensors for integrating single-photon counting capability into scientific applications and industrial equipment.
The PF32 camera range comprises two different readout rate models (high speed and ultra-high speed) as well as firmware addons to enable data processing within the camera’s FPGA (such as histogramming). Photon Force also designs, manufactures and supplies customised sensors for industry and research and development applications that require ultra-fast, single-photon sensitive imaging.
What is the state of the market where you are currently active?
R.W: The markets in which Photon Force operates are vibrant, diverse and growing. Our technologies are utilised in research and industry where next-generation applications and products are routinely developed and released for commercial use. Areas that Photon Force technologies are used include gas sensing, remote sensing, underwater imaging, and biomedical research.
What can you tell us about market trends?
R.W: We are seeing a surge in the use of our technology in both the remote sensing and biomedical fields.
What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
R.W: Our most innovative offering is our technology, which is the cornerstone of all our products and services. Photon Force offers the highest throughput, fastest time-resolved single-photon counting technology available today, enabling users to timestamp hundreds of millions of photons per second with picosecond accuracy. Our on-chip histogramming helps to offload the computational workload of the high levels of data the sensors provide, and reduces the bottleneck of data flow to users’ computers. Additionally, our forthcoming module will allow this technology to be integrated into systems in a wide variety of fields. In all our offerings, our technology is foremost.
What estimations do you have for 2024?
R.W: The next twelve months will be very exciting for Photon Force, with many new innovations in the works that we anticipate will broaden the scope of customers who can take advantage of our technology. In all our efforts, Photon Force aims to ensure that our products and services fit with, and enhance, the trends that we see in the markets we serve. Use cases for our technology are becoming more prevalent in areas such as spectroscopy and we are committed to expanding our offerings to provide more powerful tools to aid scientific progress.