PH6103 Classical and Quantum Optics

Term Project Paper

Single Photon-Based Quantum Imaging And LIDAR Applications

Ashwin A (PH20M003)
and
Vikas Kumar Sahu (PH20M015)

Department of Physics
Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati

Submitted to -

Dr. Arijit Sharma

Asst. Professor, Dept. of Physics

Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati
 Abstract
Single-photon source is an important component in quantum photonics applications. These
sources ideally emit a single photon at a time, and are highly efficient. Quantum imaging
is a field which exploits the properties such as entanglement of the transverse structures of
the light field in order to image the object with better resolution has been extensively
studied. However, single-photon quantum imaging is still in the developing stage. In this
paper,we review the single photon and single photon detection techniques which are used
in LIDAR and Quantum Imaging.

1. INTRODUCTION
The study of the nature of light was started in the 17th century.In 1690, Christiaan
Huygens published the book Traité de la Lumière ,in which he proposed that light is a
wave.The famous scientist Issac Newton published the book opticks in 1704 in which he
described the light as particle which he called “corpuscules”.After lots of experiments and
arguments Max Planck came up with the idea of “photon”.A photon is defined as an
elementary excitation of a single mode of the quantized electromagnetic field.A
single-photon is kind of quantum light.It is quantum state of a radiation mode that contains
a single excitation. Single-photon imaging has been emerging topic in recent years. We
can image an object using a single photon with better resolution from this technique, thus
this technique is widely used in various fields, such as biological fluorescence
measurements , quantum physics, and laser radar. One of the most important components
in single photon imaging systems is the detector with single photon sensitivity. Single
photon detection techniques are also used in LIDAR(Light detection and ranging) which
further improves the performance of a linear LIDAR.

2. SINGLE PHOTON
A photon is defined as an elementary excitation of a single mode of the quantized
electromagnetic field.A single-photon is a kind of quantum light.It is a quantum state of a
radiation mode that contains a single excitation. We define a single photon in terms of the
operator describing the positive frequency parts of the electromagnetic field. Typically, we
use plane wave modes, with plane polarization, to expand the field operator at space–time
point (x,t) so that the (dimensionless) positive frequency operator is

∞
(+) −𝑖(ω𝑡 −𝑘𝑥)
𝐸 (𝑡, 𝑥) = ∫ 𝑑ω 𝑎(ω)𝑒 (1)
0

2.1. CHARACTERIZATION OF SINGLE PHOTON

The metrics of a single photon source are: purity, indistinguishability, source
efficiency, and source brightness.The most fundamental metric of a single photon is
purity and is defined as the probability of emitting a single photon. Indistinguishability
refers to the identical quantum states of the successive single photon.The Source
efficiency is defined by the fraction of applied triggers with which a single photon was

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collected from the source. Source brightness is defined as the maximum rate at which
the source can emit single photons.
Single-photon purity is a statistically measured value given by the second-order
(2)
coherence 𝑔 (τ), where τ is the time delay between two photons in the emitted light field.
At τ = 0 ,the second-order coherence can be given as
2 <𝑛(𝑡)(𝑛(𝑡)−1)>
𝑔 (0) = 2 (2)
<𝑛(𝑡)>

(2)
Where, 𝑛(t) is the photon number operator and t is time. We can relate the 𝑔 (0)value to
(2)
the probability of the source emitting n photons to the mode. For coherent light, 𝑔 (τ)
(2) (2)
=1, and for any classical light field,𝑔 (τ)≥1. For a single-photon state, 𝑔 (0)=0 and for
(2)
an n-photon state, 𝑔 (0)=1−1/n. Therefore, the condition for single-photon emission is
(2)
𝑔 (0)<0.5 in experiments.
The purity of single-photon can be determined with the Hanbury Brown–Twiss (HBT)
interferometer. The components of HBT setup (Fig 1) are a beamsplitter, two
single-photon detectors, and electronics for coincidence counting and readout. After
passing through the beamsplitter, the single photon exits in a superposition state of the two
output modes. When the photon is detected it collapses the superposition and it detected
by only one of the detectors.The second-order coherence between the beamsplitter outputs
2 (2)
𝑔34(τ) is the same as for the input 𝑔11 (τ) and, conveniently, single-photon detectors can
(2)
be used to obtain 𝑔34 (τ) approximately. For normalization coincidence counts with high
(2)
enough τ values are used, as 𝑔 (τ)→1 for τ→∞ .Finite time response of the detectors can
(2)
lead to uncertain the 𝑔 (0)dip and can be corrected for slow detectors. An example HBT
measurement result shown in Fig 2.

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 Fig .1 Experimental setup for HBT

Fig .2 Experimental result with pulsed excitation of a high-purity nanowire SPS.

The indistinguishability of two photons is given as

2
𝐼(ρ1, ρ2) ≡ 1 −
1 ||||ρ − ρ ||||
2 || 1 2||

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 2
Where ρ1 and ρ2 are the density matrices of the photon and ||||||ρ1 − ρ2|||||| is their
operational distance. when the density matrices are equal, the two photons are fully
indistinguishable with 𝐼(ρ1, ρ2) = 1. Single-photon indistinguishability can be determined
with the Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) interference measurement. The HOM setup consists of
a beamsplitter, two single-photon detectors, and electronics for coincidence counting and
readout photons emitted by a single photon source is made to fall on both the beamsplitter
inputs. Single photon source are excited by trigger pulses to produce many single photon
and the emitted single photon is split and it is directed to the two input of the beamsplitter
in the HOM
HOM works on the concept that an incident photon will undergo quantum interference if
the photon coming out from the splitter has the same quantum state and overlaps spatially.
Such that there will again be no coincidence counts. We can make the photons fully
distinguishable by having orthogonal polarizations or by removing the overlap via a time
delay, we obtain the HOM interference visibility as
𝐶𝐷−𝐶𝐼
𝑉𝐻𝑂𝑀 = 𝐶𝐷

𝐶𝐼 and 𝐶𝐷 are the coincidence probabilities with and without the interference. If the
photons are in pure states and the beamsplitter ratio is 50:50, the visibility 𝑉𝐻𝑂𝑀 equals
indistinguishability .

The source efficiency η can be expressed by the generation efficiency η𝑔 and the
extraction efficiency η𝑒𝑥𝑡 as η=η𝑔η𝑒𝑥𝑡. Generation efficiency is the probability of
obtaining emission of a single photon per trigger.

Fig .3 Experimental setup for HOM

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 Fig .4 Experimental results from HOM
(Fig 1-4 Ref.Mäntynen H. et. al..Single-photon sources with quantum dots in III–V
nanowires.Nanophotonics 8(5),April 2019)

3. QUANTUM IMAGING

In quantum optics, quantum imaging is a field which exploits the properties such as
entanglement of the transverse structures of the light field in order to image the object
with better resolution. The wave nature of light limits the resolution and contrast that can
be achieved in classical imaging techniques. The concept of image in classical imaging is
based on the existence of a point-to-point relationship between the object and the image
planes. Various momenta passing through a point object are focused by lens into the image
plane.

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 .

Fig 5. Classical Imaging(M D'Angelo and Y H Shih, Quantum Imaging , Laser Phys. Lett.
2 567,2005)

The point-to-point relationship is affected by diffraction and converted into a

point-to-spot relationship.The Spot Width relates to the image resolution then it is related
to the size of the imaging lens.. The spot size is described by the point-spread function
which, for circular apertures , is given by the Airy pattern A(ξ) = 2J1(πξ)/(πξ), where J1 is
the first order Bessel function and ξ = asinθ/λ, with a the diameter of the aperture, λ the
wavelength of the radiation and θ the observation angle.The diffraction limit is determined
by the distance between the central maximum and the first minimum of the Airy pattern.
An image can be understood as the result of the convolution between the object transfer
function and the point-spread function of the system. The idea behind the image
formation process is that all the necessary information to produce an image is contained
in the wavefronts leaving the object plane. The first step in the formation of image
involves diffraction at the object plane; the second step is to recombine the diffracted light
to produce an image.
In Quantum imaging, a pair of entangled photons is emitted with different momenta in
various possible directions. However, if the transverse momentum of one photon is
measured, the transverse momentum of the other photon is immediately determined: It
will be equal and opposite. The patterns on both detectors’ planes show no features at all,
but a point- to-point relationship arises between the object and the image planes: A ghost
image of the object is retrieved by recording the joint detection events of the entangled
photon pairs while scanning a distant photon counting detector on the image plane

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 Fig 6. Quantum Imaging(M D'Angelo and Y H Shih, Quantum Imaging , Laser Phys. Lett.
2 567,2005)

4. LIDAR
LIDAR is an acronym for Light detection and Ranging ,it is a method used for
determining the Ranges(variable distance) of the target.LIDAR has a greater precision
than SONAR and RADAR.LIDAR uses an laser source and it works on the principle of
time of flight,in which the laser source is targeted on an object and the laser are reflected
from it and the reflected sources is collected in the photo detectors and the time it takes to
get to the photodetector is measured and the distance is calculated.LIDAR has various
applications in the field of physics and astronomy,Agriculture,Archaeology,Military.
𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 × 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
Distance of Target Object = 2

4.1. SINGLE PHOTON LIDAR

Sigma space is currently developing Single photon lidar which would have application
in measuring atmospheric particles and for 3D imaging. Single-photon lidar is just like a
linear-mode lidar but it is designed better. A laser emitter is projected at an angle between
10 to 30 degrees. The scanner rotates around in a circle,emitting the beam out in an
inverted cone shape. The idea behind the angle and shape is to see the sides of objects;
in just two passes you can scan all sides of a building.
The beam goes through a splitter that divides it into a 10 by 10 grid of 100 separate
beamlets.The beamlet spreads out, pulsing through the air 60,000 times each second. We
collect 100 of such beamlets, that’s a total of 6*10^6 data points per second

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The detector is sensitive such that if one single photon of a beamlet returns and they can
calculate the round trip of each single photon with high precision.The detectors wait for
some time and collect multiple returns of that same pulse, because the beamlet is large to
touch multiple surfaces at once. By doing this, we can detect the canopy, branches, bushes,
and ground all in one single pulse. Datas are noted based on the time it took for the
beamlet to return,if the beamlet takes long time to return the further the target .An
advantage to SPL is that, because the photosensing detectors are sensitive hence less
power is required to run these .Sigma Space’s (the company that developed SPL) SPL
makes use of green laser of wavelength 532nm as to the 1024nm infrared beam used by
many lidar.The reason for choosing this wavelength is that the detectors used in SPL have
peak sensitivity close to that wavelength of visible spectrum.

Fig 7.(Boris Jutzi., Less Photons for More LiDAR? A Review from Multi-Photon
Detection to Single Photon Detection.56th Photogrammetric Week (PhoWo) 201)

5. CONCLUSION
We studied the single photon and its characteristics. A single-photon source
gives rise to an effectively one-photon number state. Photons from an ideal
single-photon source exhibit quantum mechanical characteristics. The applications
of single-photon in the emerging fields like Quantum imaging and LIDAR are
reviewed.

References

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1. Boris Jutzi., Less Photons for More LiDAR? A Review from Multi-Photon
Detection to Single Photon Detection.56th Photogrammetric Week (PhoWo) 2017
2. https://www.ssla.co.uk/lidar/
3. Henrik Mäntynen*, Nicklas Anttu, Zhipei Sun and Harri Lipsanen.Single-photon
sources with quantum dots in III–V nanowires.Nanophotonics 8(5),April 2019
4. Jia-Zhi Yang, Ming-Fei Li, Xiao-Xiao Chen1, Wen-Kai Yu1, and An-Ning Zhang,
Single-photon quantum imaging via single-photon illumination, Appl. Phys. Lett.
117, 214001 (2020)
5. G. J. Milburn and S. Basiri-Esfahani, Quantum optics with one or two photons,
Proc Math Phys Eng Sci. 2015 Aug 8; 471(2180): 20150208
6. M D'Angelo and Y H Shih, Quantum Imaging , Laser Phys. Lett. 2 567,2005