Photon statistics in the macroscopic realm measured without photon-counters

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to measure photon statistics in the macroscopic regime using linear-response detectors, bypassing the need for photon counters by analyzing voltage distributions.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to infer photon statistics from voltage measurements in detectors with linear response, applicable when photon counts are too high for traditional counters.

Findings

Voltage distributions match photon statistics under certain conditions

Method works with detectors having narrow voltage response distributions

Enables photon statistics measurement without photon counters

Abstract

In a macroscopic realm, in which photons are too many for being counted by any photon counting detector, photon statistics can be measured by using detectors simply endowed with linear response. We insert one of such detectors in a conventional photon-counting apparatus, which returns a voltage every time the detector responds to light by generating a number of elementary charges via its primary photo-detection process. We only assume that, when a single charge is photo-generated, the probability density of the voltages is a distribution that is narrow with respect to its mean value. Under this hypothesis the output voltages can be suitably binned so that their probability distribution is the same as that of the photo-generated charges, that is, of the detected photons.