Time-of-flight laser ranging and imaging at 1550 nm using low-jitter superconducting nanowire single-photon detection system

TL;DR

This paper presents a low-jitter superconducting nanowire single-photon detection system enabling precise time-of-flight laser ranging and imaging at 1550 nm over 115 meters, with high depth resolution and potential for long-range applications.

Contribution

The paper introduces a low-jitter SNSPD-based TCSPC system achieving 26.8 ps jitter, enabling accurate laser ranging and imaging at 1550 nm with 4 mm resolution over 115 meters.

Findings

Achieved 26.8 ps system jitter.

Demonstrated 115 m laser ranging at 1550 nm.

Realized 4 mm depth resolution.

Abstract

We developed a time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) system based on the low-jitter superconducting nanowire single-photon detection (SNSPD) technology. The causes of jitters in the TCSPC system were analyzed. Owing to the low jitter of the SNSPD technology, a system jitter of 26.8 ps full-width at half-maximum was achieved after optimizing the system. We demonstrated time-of-flight laser ranging at 1550 nm wavelength at a stand-off distance of 115 m, based on this TCSPC system. A depth resolution of 4 mm was achieved directly by locating the centroids of each of the two return signals. Laser imaging was also performed using the TCSPC system. This low-jitter TCSPC system using the SNSPD technology presents great potential in long-range measurements and imaging applications for low-energy-level and eye-safe laser systems