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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

Efficient Production of Photon Bunching From Laser Light for Rangefinding

Darren Ming Zhi Koh, Xi Jie Yeo, Justin Yu Xiang Peh, Christian Kurtsiefer, Peng Kian Tan

Published Jun 23, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Temporal photon bunching is the phenomena in which photons tend to cluster together on a short time scale. This effect can be quantified using the second order coherence$g^{(2)}(\tau)$of the light. Photon bunching has been utilized in LIDAR, ghost imaging and simulating star light. In these applications, bunched light is typically generated inefficiently by sending coherent laser light through a phase randomization media, such as a rotating ground glass [1] or a liquid suspension of microspheres [2].

DOI
10.1109/cleo/europe-eqec65582.2025.11110134

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•Jul 27, 2026•0 citations
Temporal photon bunching is the phenomena in which photons tend to cluster together on a short time scale. This effect can be quantified using the second order coherenceg(2)(τ)g^{(2)}(\tau)g(2)(τ)of the light. Photon bunching has been utilized in LIDAR, ghost imaging and simulating star light. In these applications, bunched light is typically generated inefficiently by sending coherent laser light through a phase randomization media, such as a rotating ground glass [1] or a liquid suspension of microspheres [2].
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Thermal light sources exhibiting photon bunching have been suggested for sensing applications that exploit timing correlations of stationary light, including range finding, clock synchronization, and non-line-of-sight imaging. However, these proposals have remained unrealized in practice because available sources of photon bunching either possess coherence times too short to be timing resolved by photodetectors, or produce brightness levels too low to tolerate realistic return losses. In this work, we demonstrate a low-loss method for generating photon bunching with a conversion efficiency nearly 9 orders of magnitude higher than that achieved by many other bunching processes.
Thermal light by nature exhibits the well-known photon bunching effect with the zero-delay second-order correlation coefficient g(2){g}^{(2)}g(2) ideally equal to 2. The Photon extra-bunching effect, as a special class of the superbunching effect (g(2)>2{g}^{(2)}>2g(2)>2), describes the enhanced photon correlation (g(2)=3{g}^{(2)}=3g(2)=3) through the interference of bright twin beams produced in the spontaneous parametric down-conversion. In this work, we report that this effect can exist in classical beams and that g(2){g}^{(2)}g(2) can approach 4 in some extended extreme models. We experimentally demonstrate the nontrivial extra-bunching correlation ($\ensuremath{\sim}1.4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}$ gain) in pairwise-generated holographic thermal light beams with a Dove prism-embedded balanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The interaction of such a pair of conjugated thermal light beams can generate a pair of uncorrelated superthermal light beams, enabling ghost imaging and Young's intensity interference with enhanced visibility. The quantum-inspired interference-induced spatial extra-bunching effect provides novel insights into inducing superbunching correlation in classical light and holds the potential for application in the coherent two-photon Lidar system to enhance sensitivity.
Abstract Traditional Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems rely on a modulated light source to encode information in the probe signal to measure distances. Alternatively, thermal LIDAR uses non-modulated thermal sources of bunched light. In this work, we demonstrate a bunched photon source at telecom wavelength, incorporated in a photon-counting LIDAR system, which determines distances by measuring the second-order correlation. The source is a sub-threshold laser spectrally filtered to extend coherence time, producing an oscillating g (2) curve with an enhanced bunching peak. Utilizing this oscillating bunching increases the signal-to-noise ratio and decreases the number of correlation events required to perform a measurement. This system achieves 2 ps resolution in both fiber-based and free-space measurements with up to 65 dB attenuation and ranges up to 87 km in optical fibers. Our approach demonstrates the possibility of increasing the bunching of classical light sources and improving their usability for LIDAR.
Photon bunching is the phenomenon in which photons in a light field have a higher than random probability of being grouped together.1 In this work, we demonstrate how narrow-band photon bunched light can be generated efficiently from laser light with −7dB conversion efficiency compared to −100dB with established methods. We then showcase a use for such sources by performing clock synchronization of two separate quartz oscillators, achieving synchronization with frequency offset error of 3:2ppb.
Abstract Photon superbunching, with second-order coherence far beyond the Gaussian thermal limit, is a valuable resource for quantum optics and correlation-based imaging. However, existing sources often rely on fragile platforms, inefficient nonlinear conversion, or mechanically complex architectures. Here, we demonstrate the first highly stable, fully fiber-integrated superbunched random fiber laser that provides a broadly tunable source of giant photon bunching. We establish a cooperative linear–nonlinear mechanism in which Rayleigh-scattering-mediated diffusion provides distributed random feedback, while cascaded stimulated Brillouin scattering and quasi-phase-matched four-wave mixing amplify and redistribute stochastic intensity fluctuations across a spectral comb. This enables continuous tuning of g (2) (0) from approximately 1 to 28 via tailored modulation of linear diffusion strength and nonlinear coupling magnitude. Moreover, by combining photon-correlation measurements with Parisi-overlap analysis, we reveal an inverse correlation between disorder-induced photonic phase evolution and microscopic photon bunching, bridging macroscopic disordered-cavity dynamics and high-order photon statistics. Furthermore, we demonstrate that strongly superbunched light enables temporal ghost imaging with comparable reconstruction fidelity while requiring more than an order-of-magnitude fewer realizations than weakly bunched light. Together, these results establish a fiber-integrated route to engineering giant photon superbunching and high-order light statistics for correlation-based photonic technologies.