SPAD Alpha
A high-performance single-photon camera.
Widefield camera
Available with RGB patterns
Time gating
Plug and Play
SPAD Alpha, a high-performance single-photon camera
SPAD Alpha is a photon-counting camera for high-speed imaging. The core of the camera is a SPAD image sensor with 1024×1024 pixels. Photon counting with up to 73’000 frames per second and zero readout noise is achieved. The global shutter enables nanosecond exposures with exposure shifts of 17 ps. The image sensor is optimized for low noise, with a typical dark count rate of less than 100 cps.
*Other product names: SPADALPHA, SPAD ALPHA, SPAD1M.
For consistency and clarity, note that these names refer to the same product.
Widefield camera
Released in 2025, SPAD Alpha is the successor of the first commercially available SPAD camera in the world, SPAD 512. It is suitable for photon-counting and photon-time gating applications.
Imaging in color
Our single-photon detectors are fabricated with RGB filters allowing for photon counting in color.
Time gating
The sensor features time gating to study time varying signals of interest, such as FLIM. This makes it a perfect addition to any widefield FLIM microscopy setup.
Plug and play
The system requires just a 5V power adapter and two USB3 cables to run. For full flexibility, 2 additional control lines can be connected to the SMA connectors.
The detector is bundled with an intuitive software interface. The software gives easy access to all functionalities offered by our detectors, allows for fast prototyping and makes acquiring widefield single-photon data easier than ever.
For the advanced users, we offer 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.
Thanks to its large 1024×1024 SPAD image sensor, our camera is an ideal candidate to complement a widefield microscope. Time gating makes the camera a suitable candidate for widefield, video-rate FLIM applications.
Other applications include high-speed imaging and quantum correlation imaging.
To showcase real life examples of our camera in various applications, we refer to our applications page.
| Properties | SPAD Alpha |
|---|---|
| Image sensor type | SPAD with RGB filters |
| Array size | 1024×1024 pixels |
| Wavelength window | 400—900 nm |
| Pixel pitch | 16 um |
| Median dark count rate | <100 cps |
| Maximum system bandwidth (2× USB-3) | 6 Gbps |
| Maximum frame rate (1-bit, burst) | 73,000 fps |
| Maximum frame rate (4-bit, semi-continuous) | 4,883 fps |
| Maximum frame rate (7-bit, continuous) | 580 fps |
| Maximum frame rate (8-bit, continuous) | 287 fps |
| Minimum gate width | 6 ns |
| Minimum gate step size | 17 ps |
| Power consumption | 5-10 W |
| External SMA triggers | frame/gate trigger laser clock |
| Peltier and air cooling | ✔ |
| Protective glass window | ✔ |
| Robust metal enclosure | ✔ |
