Ultraviolet photon-counting single-pixel imaging

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel ultraviolet photon-counting single-pixel imaging system utilizing a 4H-SiC SPAD, enabling high-resolution, low-light imaging and object identification in the ultraviolet spectrum.

Contribution

Development of a high-performance, compact ultraviolet single-photon detector with structured illumination for efficient single-pixel imaging.

Findings

Successfully reconstructed 192×192 images at 4 fps

Demonstrated identification of transparent objects under low UV light

Showed capability to image ultraviolet light sources

Abstract

We demonstrate photon-counting single-pixel imaging in the ultraviolet region. Toward this target, we develop a high-performance compact single-photon detector based on a 4H-SiC single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD), where a tailored readout circuit with active hold-off time is designed to restrain detector noise and operate the SPAD in free-running mode. We use structured illumination to reconstruct 192$\times$192 compressed images at a 4 fps frame rate. To show the superior capability of ultraviolet characteristics, we use our single-pixel imaging system to identify and distinguish different transparent objects under low-intensity irradiation, and image ultraviolet light sources. The results provide a practical solution for general ultraviolet imaging applications.