Single photon range, intensity and photon flux imaging with kilohertz frame rate and high dynamic range.

Optical sensing with single photon counting avalanche diode detectors has become a versatile approach for ranging and low light level imaging. In this paper, we compare time correlated and uncorrelated imaging of single photon events using an InGaAs single-photon-counting-avalanche-photo-diode (SPAD) sensor with a 32 × 32 focal plane array detector. We compare ranging, imaging and photon flux measurement capabilities at shortwave infrared wavelengths and determine the minimum number of photon event measurements to perform reliable scene reconstruction. With time-correlated-single-photon-counting (TCSPC), we obtained range images with centimeter resolution and determined the relative intensity. Using uncorrelated single photon counting (USPC), we demonstrated photon flux estimation with a high dynamic range from