Urgent Need for a High Speed, Highly Sensitive Near-Infrared Photodetection System

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We urgently require a highly sensitive near-infrared photodetection system to perform the steady-state and time-resolved measurement of photo- and electroluminescence in the spectral region of 900-1700 nm in order to probe 1) Charge Transfer (CT) excitons in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells 2) Low temperature photoluminescence of near-IR emitting colloidal quantum dots 3) Single molecule sensing immunoassays and 4) Quantum Yield and Lifetime of near-IR triplet emitters. There is currently not a single such near-infrared photodetection system available anywhere at the UofA or at NRC-NINT or anywhere in the province of Alberta. The absence of an instrument to measure faint photo- and electroluminescence in the spectral region of 900-1700 nm is limiting progress on a number of research projects in nanomaterials, organic electronics and photonic devices. The commonly used cooled Germanium based detectors are severely limited in both speed and sensitivity. Cutting edge work in the above fields demands the million-fold noiseless internal gain of near infrared photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), that possess spectral sensitivity up to 1700 nm while retaining a response time under 2 ns.