FOCAL-PLANE ARRAYS: Geiger-mode focal plane arrays enable SWIR 3D imaging

摘要

By hybridizing Geiger-mode APD arrays to suitable CMOS readout integrated circuits, a focal-plane array can be developed that serves as an ideal sensor engine for 3D imaging lidar systems with single-photon sensitivity at SWIR wavelengths. One of the most dramatic transformations taking place in the field of imaging is the growing prevalence of three-dimensional (3D) imagery. The display of 3D imagery is emerging as an indispensable tool in medical settings and industrial applications, is becoming commonplace in the movie industry, and is poised to experience explosive growth in consumer electronic gaming. This proliferation of 3D image display has been accompanied by significant advances in the complementary task of 3D image capture. Various techniques for recording 3D images have been in use for some time (such as the application of stereography using 2D images of a scene obtained from different angles); perhaps the most effective approach for 3-D image capture is light detection and ranging (lidar). Using lidar techniques, short optical pulses illuminate a scene and precise time-of-flight measurements of the pulse reflections from objects in the scene enable accurate distance information that provides the third spatial dimension normally absent when images are recorded using ambient reflected light. Construction of a 3D camera is then accomplished by independently applying the lidar technique to every pixel of an imaging focal plane array (see Fig. 1).