USTC Makes Significant Progress in Short-wave Infrared Single-photon Lidar

Prof. Liang Wang's team at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has made significant progress in short-wave infrared single-photon LIDAR, which was developed in collaboration with Inquirer Quantum Co. The research team has developed an all-weather, large scanning angle LIDAR imaging system by using an independently developed single-photon detector chip, matching readout circuits, and combining with an all-fiber LIDAR, providing a pioneering method for short-wave infrared single-photon imaging and its core chip preparation, and the related results are summarized in the title of "Single-photon Depth Imaging Using a single-photon detector chip". Photon Depth Imaging Using a Photodetector With a Wire-Bonding Quenching Resistor." The related results have been published in the renowned journal in the field of detectors, IEEESensorsJournal. IEEESensorsJournal.
Single-photon lidar technology plays a key role in remote sensing, autonomous driving, and UAV navigation. By utilizing time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC), this technology is capable of ultra-high resolution and long-range target detection, which has great potential and is widely used in military, aerospace, environmental monitoring and other fields. Among them, LIDAR in the 1550nm band, which has good atmospheric transmission performance and is safe for human eyes, is the focus of current research.
The research team made the InGaAs single-photon detector work in free-running mode with better optoelectronic performance under the optimized readout circuit by means of gold wire bonding quenching resistance during the chip packaging process. The single-photon detector module achieves a low after-pulse probability of 3.96% and a dark count rate of 0.9 KHz at an operating temperature of 243 K and a dead time of 5 μs. At the same time, the module achieves a depth imaging of 3km in foggy weather with a low pulse laser power (5mW@40KHz) in a LiDAR system. Moreover, the research team has realized the full localization and independent development from the core chip and readout circuit of LIDAR to the whole LIDAR system, which is of great significance to promote the domestic short-wave infrared long-range single-photon LIDAR.

Figure 1 Single-photon lidar system and imaging results
Prof. Liang Wang of the Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), is the corresponding author of the paper, and Dr. Yingmei Liu, a PhD student, is the first author of the paper. This research was funded by the Department of Science and Technology of Anhui Province, and also supported by the School of Physics of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), the 38th Research Institute of China Electronic Science and Technology Group (CESTG), the Center for Micro-Nano Research and Manufacturing (CMSM) of USTC, and the Key Laboratory of Quantum Information (KLQI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.