Super resolution single photon imaging at 8.2 kilometers.
Single photon light detection and ranging (LiDAR) offering single photon sensitivity and picosecond time resolution, has been widely adopted for active imaging applications. Long range active imaging is a great challenge, because the spatial resolution degrades significantly with the imaging range due to the diffraction limit of the optics, and only weak echo signal photons can return but mixed with a strong background noise. Here we propose and demonstrate a photon efficient LiDAR approach that can achieve sub Rayleigh resolution imaging over long ranges. This approach exploits fine sub pixel scanning and a deconvolution algorithm tailored to this long range application. Using this approach, we experimentally demonstrated active three dimensional (3D) single photon imaging by recognizing different postures of a mannequin model at a stand off distance of 8.2 km in both daylight and night. The observed spatial (transversal) resolution is ~5.5 cm at 8.2 km, which is about twice of the system's resolution. This also beats the optical system's Rayleigh criterion. The results are valuable for geosciences and target recognition over long ranges.
Optics express