Near-Infrared 3D Imaging with Upconversion Detection

TL;DR

This paper introduces a near-infrared 3D imaging system that uses upconversion detection and time-of-flight gating to achieve high-resolution, sensitive imaging capable of penetrating scattering media for applications like biomedical imaging and environmental monitoring.

Contribution

It presents a novel 3D imaging technique combining active NIR illumination, upconversion detection, and fast gating, enabling sub-millimeter resolution and effective imaging through highly scattering media.

Findings

Achieves sub-millimeter depth resolution.

Successfully reconstructs occluded targets behind scattering media.

Demonstrates high sensitivity with milliwatt illumination power.

Abstract

We demonstrate a photon-sensitive, three-dimensional camera by active near-infrared illumination and fast time-of-flight gating. It uses pico-second pump pulses to selectively up-convert the backscattered photons according to their spatiotemporal modes via sum-frequency generation in a \c{hi}2 nonlinear crystal, which are then detected by electron-multiplying CCD with photon sensitive detection. As such, it achieves sub-millimeter depth resolution, exceptional noise suppression, and high detection sensitivity. Our results show that it can accurately reconstruct the surface profiles of occluded targets placed behind highly scattering and lossy obscurants of 14 optical depth (round trip), using only milliwatt illumination power. This technique may find applications in biomedical imaging, environmental monitoring, and wide-field light detection and ranging