Single-Photon LIDAR Exploiting Pulsed, Continuous, and Chaotic Illumination
Time: Thu 2025-06-05 10.00
Location: Q2, Malvinas väg 10, Stockholm
Language: English
Subject area: Physics, Optics and Photonics
Doctoral student: Theodor Staffas , Quantum and Nanostructure Physics, KTH, QNP
Opponent: Professor Gerald Buller, Heriot-Watt university
Supervisor: Val Zwiller, Tillämpad fysik; Ali W. Elshaari, Tillämpad fysik
QC 2025-05-06
Abstract
Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) is a key enabling technology in our modern society, with widespread applications across multiple industries ranging from heavy industry such as manufacturing and mining to telecommunication and autonomous vehicles. LIDAR has also developed into a critical and widespread tool for scientific research, impacting a broad range of fields such as archaeology and atmospheric sensing, to name but two.At its core, LIDAR consists of three fundamental components: a source, an optical system, and a detector. The source generates the optical probe signal, the optical system directs the probe toward the target and collects the returned signal, and the detector records the reflected signal for further analysis to determine the target’s distance (and other variables such as velocity or reflectivity may be extracted depending on the LIDAR system). This dissertation primarily focuses on the source and detector, exploring different methodologies and applications of LIDAR, particularly in the context of single-photon detectors.
This thesis begins with an overview of the historical development of LIDAR and its natural progression towards incorporating single-photon-sensitive detectors to enhance performance. The operating principles of the most commonly used single-photon detectors are examined and compared, with a detailed discussion on how their performance characteristics and practical constraints influence LIDAR system functionality and design.
Following this, three fundamentally different types of light sources used for different LIDAR methods—pulsed, continuous, and chaotic—are explored. The operating principles of each method are detailed, including how distance information is encoded within each type of probe and the corresponding analysis required for its extraction. Additionally, the advantages and limitations of these LIDAR methods are discussed.