Miniature SPAD Sensors for Fluorescence Lifetime Endoscopy

This project would look to extend the capabilities of existing endoscopic cameras (available from companies such as Awaiba and Ominivision) to greater sensitivity, higher dynamic range and time-resolved sensing for fluorescence lifetime and Raman. This will be achieved using single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) arrays in CMOS. The CMOS Sensors and Systems Group at University of Edinburgh have recently demonstrated SPAD cameras with the world’s smallest pitch, largest array size and highest fill-factor enabling a number of exciting new applications.
The first part of the project will involve assembling and testing the world’s first time-resolved endoscopic camera for fluorescence imaging. Designed with the Proteus project (http://proteus.ac.uk/) a new 80×40 SPAD sensor with 1mm x 1mm chip size has been demonstrated using technology accessed through the ENIAC –POLIS project (http://polis.minalogic.net/index.php). The student would design a miniature printed circuit board for the camera (few millimetre in size) and arrange for electrical power and data connection to be delivered over a suitable cable to the camera. Optical system design requires a suitable laser source to be delivered via optic fibre (continuous-wave and pulsed) and to design and mount a miniature lensing system on the camera. The final endoscopic system would then be demonstrated with our partners in the Queen’s Medical Research Institute.
There is scope in the latter part of the project for the student to design a revised version of the CMOS SPAD camera chip. The goals of this would be to minimising the number of off-chip connections by integrating other auxiliary components such as oscillator, timing generators and power management on-chip. The chip would ideally benefit from through-silicon-via ball-bonding to eliminate external bond wire connections.
The project can benefit from our research collaboration agreement from STMicroelectronics in access to latest CMOS image sensor manufacturing technology.