Pi Imaging SPAD Alpha high-performance single-photon camera

SPAD Alpha by Pi Imaging is a photon-counting camera for high-speed imaging and is suitable for applications in photon-counting, photon-time gating, FLIM, low-light, 3D and scientific research. The camera won first place in the Laser World of Photonics Innovation Awards 2025.

The core of the camera is a SPAD image sensor with 1024 x 1024 pixels. Photon counting with up to 73,000 fps and zero readout noise is achieved. The global shutter enables nanosecond exposures with exposure shifts of 17 ps. The image sensor is optimised for low noise, with a typical dark count rate of less than 100 cps.

Single-photon detectors are fabricated with RGB filters allowing for photon counting in colour. The sensor features time gating to study time varying signals of interest, such as FLIM. This makes it a useful addition to any widefield FLIM microscopy set-up. The system requires just a 5 V power adapter and two USB3 cables to run. For full flexibility, two additional control lines can be connected to the SMA connectors.

The detector is bundled with an intuitive software interface. The software gives access to all functionalities offered by their detectors, allows for fast prototyping, and should allow for easier acquisition of widefield single-photon data.

For advanced users, Pi Imaging offers full remote control through a standard TCP/IP interface. This enables the user to take full control of the system from any TCP/IP capable software package, such as Matlab, Octave, Labview and Python.