Compact long-range single-photon imager with dynamic imaging capability
Peng-Yu Jiang, Zheng-Ping Li, Feihu Xu
Abstract
Single-photon light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has emerged as a strong candidate technology for active imaging applications. Benefiting from the single-photon sensitivity in detection, long-range active imaging can be realized with a low-power laser and a small-aperture transceiver. However, existing kilometer-range active imagers are bulky and have a long data acquisition time. Here we present a compact co-axial single-photon LiDAR system for kilometer-range 3D imaging. A fiber-based transceiver with a 2.5 cm effective aperture was employed to realize a robust and compact architecture, while a tailored temporal filtering approach guaranteed the high signal-to-noise level. Moreover, a micro–electro–mechanical system scanning mirror was adopted to achieve fast beam scanning. In experiment, high-resolution 3D images of different targets up to 12.8 km were acquired to demonstrate the long-range imaging capability. Furthermore, it exhibits the ability to achieve dynamic imaging at five frames per second over a distance of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mo>∼</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mspace width="thickmathspace"/> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">k</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">m</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> . The results indicate potential in a variety of applications such as remote sensing and long-range target detection.