  Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) and time tagging of individual
photon detections are powerful tools in many quantum optical experiments and
other areas of applied physics. Using TCSPC, e.g., for the purpose of
fluorescence lifetime measurements, is often limited in speed due to dead-time
losses and pile-up. We show that this limitation can be lifted by reducing the
dead-time of the timing electronics to the absolute minimum imposed by the
speed of the detector signals while maintaining high temporal resolution. A
complementing approach to speedy data acquisition is parallelization by means
of simultaneous readout of many detector channels. This puts high demands on
the data throughput of the TCSPC system, especially in time tagging of
individual photon arrivals. Here, we present a new design approach, supporting
up to 16 input channels, an extremely short dead-time of 650 ps, very high time
tagging throughput, and a timing resolution of 80 ps. In order to facilitate
remote synchronization of multiple such instruments with highest precision, the
new TCSPC electronics provide an interface for White Rabbit fiber optic
networks. Beside fundamental research in the field of astronomy, such remote
synchronization tasks arise routinely in quantum communication networks with
node to node distances on the order of tens of kilometers. In addition to
showing design features and benchmark results of new TCSPC electronics, we
present application results from spectrally resolved and high-speed
fluorescence lifetime imaging in medical research. We furthermore show how
pulse-pile-up occurring in the detector signals at high photon flux can be
corrected for and how this data acquisition scheme performs in terms of
accuracy and efficiency.
