Low-Cost Submillimeter-Precision Single-Photon Ranging

The single-photon detection technique has unique advantages, such as high sensitivity, low timing jitter, and low power consumption. Thus, its applications in laser ranging and imaging are becoming increasingly widespread. In this paper, we introduce a low-cost high-precision single-photon ranging system, in which a narrow pulse laser generated by the laser diode with a pulse width of 160 ps and a low timing jitter single-photon detector based on a multi-pixel photon counter with a timing jitter of 417 ps are used to reduce the overall timing jitter of the system. The ranging experiment results show that within the 2-meter ranging range, the distance measurement accuracy of the single-photon ranging system could reach 370 mu m@ RMS. The experimental device adopts a coaxial optical path design, with a simple structure and easy integration, providing a feasible solution for achieving a miniaturized, low-power, high-precision single photon ranging system.