Multi-photon enhanced resolution for Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector-based Time-of-Flight lidar systems

Abstract: Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) emerged in the last decade as a disruptive technology that features performance characteristics, such as high sensitivity, dynamic range and temporal accuracy, which are ideally suited for light detection and ranging (lidar) applications. Here, we report a time-of-flight (TOF) lidar system based on waveguide-integrated SNSPDs that excels in temporal accuracy, which translates into high range resolution. For single-shot measurements, we find resolution in the millimeter regime, resulting from the jitter of the time-of-flight signal of 21$\,$ps for low photon numbers. We further decrease this signal jitter to 11$\,$ps by driving the SNSPD into a multiphoton detection regime, utilizing laser pulses of higher intensity, thus improving range resolution. For multi-shot measurements we find sub-millimeter range-accuracy of 0.75$\,$mm and reveal additional surface information of scanned objects by visualizing the number of reflected photons and their temporal spread with the acquired range data in a combined representation. Our realization of a lidar receiver exploits favorable timing accuracy of waveguide-integrated SNSPDs and extends their operation to the multiphoton regime, which benefits a wide range of remote sensing applications.