Experimental Progress using Quantum Binary Waveforms and Immediate Idler Detection Techniques for Remote Sensing

Two current hurdles of quantum RADAR/LiDAR technology are i.) The use of joint measurement techniques, whereby the idler remains in a delay line or a quantum memory to be measured later with the returning signal, and ii.) The difficulty in creating high photon flux signals for long range sensing. Our measurement and detection protocol using immediate-idler-detection (IID) helps to alleviate both of these issues. We present our recent experimental data from characterizing our proof-of-concept IID quantum LiDAR system and show that similar to delay line approaches, we achieve strong correlation even in extremely noisy channels where the noise level exceeds the signal strength by as much as one hundred times. We have found that even in very lossy channels, the integration time remains extremely short and roughly the same value even as the noise is increased. We also show preliminary results through foggy free space channels and found positive correlation SNR even when the visibility was as low as 15%. Our measurement and detection protocol was designed to align closely with classical RADAR and LiDAR signal processing to better align the quantum and classical sensor regimes and allows for the potential to scale upwards and produce higher photon-flux signals from multiple photon pair sources.