Single-photon time-stretch infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

Sensitive mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy is highly demanded in various fields ranging from industrial inspection, biomedical diagnosis to astronomical observation. However, the detection sensitivity of conventional MIR spectrometers has been severely limited by excessive noises for existing infrared sensors, which hinders widespread use in photon-scarce scenarios. Here, we devise and implement a broadband MIR single-photon time-stretch spectrometer based on high-fidelity spectral upconversion and time-correlated coincidence counting. Specifically, a nanophotonic supercontinuum illumination covering 2.4-4.2 $μ$m is nonlinearly converted to the near-infrared band, where low-loss single-mode fiber and high-performance silicon detector can be leveraged to facilitate dispersive operation and sensitive detection, respectively. The arrival time for the dispersed upconversion photons is precisely registered with a low-timing-jitter photon counter, which enables us to obtain a high spectral resolution about 0.5 cm$^{-1}$ under a low-light-level illumination down to 0.14 photons/nm/pulse. In comparison to previous MIR upconversion spectrometers, the presented time-stretch architecture favors single-pixel simplicity and high-throughput acquisition for the single-photon spectral measurement. The achieved MIR spectroscopic features of broadband spectral coverage, sub-wavenumber resolution, single-photon sensitivity, and room-temperature operation would stimulate immediate applications in material and life sciences.