Quantum illumination imaging with a single-photon avalanche diode camera

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates high-resolution quantum imaging using a 100-kpixel SPAD camera to measure entangled photon pairs, enabling practical applications like quantum LiDAR with robustness against stray light.

Contribution

The study introduces full-field entangled photon pair correlation imaging with a large SPAD array, overcoming previous limitations for real-world quantum imaging applications.

Findings

Achieved high-resolution imaging with a 100-kpixel SPAD camera.

Demonstrated robustness against stray light in quantum imaging.

Enabled potential real-world applications like quantum LiDAR.

Abstract

Single-photon-avalanche diode (SPAD) arrays are essential tools in biophotonics, optical ranging and sensing and quantum optics. However, their small number of pixels, low quantum efficiency and small fill factor have so far hindered their use for practical imaging applications. Here, we demonstrate full-field entangled photon pair correlation imaging using a 100-kpixels SPAD camera. By measuring photon coincidences between more than 500 million pairs of positions, we retrieve the full point spread function of the imaging system and subsequently high-resolution images of target objects illuminated by spatially entangled photon pairs. We show that our imaging approach is robust against stray light, enabling quantum imaging technologies to move beyond laboratory experiments towards real-world applications such as quantum LiDAR.