Higher-Order Photon Correlation Imaging with Single-Photon Detector Arrays Enables Noise-Blind Source Separation
Yanqiang Guo, Li Zhang, Xiaoli Guo +4 more
Abstract Accurate detection and identification of space-based faint targets under strong background is a pressing challenge for all‑weather deep space exploration. However, active deep space detection is often hampered by the disturbances of intense stellar stray light and multi-source heterogeneous noise, making it difficult to achieve noise‑blind source separation and accurate identification of weak target signals under extremely low signal-to-noise ratio. To address these challenges, we develop a random dynamic mask modulation scheme to enhance higher-order coherence, unveiling power-law photon number distributions and super-bunching correlations that enable higher-order photon correlation imaging with a single-photon detector array (SPDA). The imaging scheme decouples the target signal from multi-source disturbances including coherent, thermal, and super-bunching light, as well as multiple background noises such as shot noise, environmental stray light, and dark counts. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a super-bunching light with a fiftieth-order photon correlation of 1.45×10 72 at a mean photon number , achieving a 10 42 enhancement in the high-to-second-order correlation ratio. The super-bunching light source enables continuously tunable output intensity from ultra‑weak to extremely bright, overcoming the limitation of conventional sources that produce only ultra‑weak photon numbers. Strikingly, we observe the ratio R n >2 of the multiphoton probability between the signal power-law light and a noise coherent laser reaching 5.29×10 269 at for 281 photons. The contrast in higher-order photon correlation imaging reaches 0.99, increasing by 0.26 over the second-order case. At an imaging exposure time of 5 µs and a mean photon number , we achieve 512×512‑pixel SPDA imaging with a dynamic range of 252.93 dB despite simultaneous photon‑starved signal and intense background. Our noise‑blind scheme establishes ultra‑wide dynamic range, high‑speed, sub-megapixel single‑photon imaging under multi‑source noise and intense optical disturbances, opening new routes for space surveillance and quantum‑enhanced detection.
•Jul 10, 2026•0 citations