Multiplexed Single-Mode Wavelength-to-Time Mapping of Multimode Light

Abstract: We demonstrate that photonic lanterns based on tapered multicore fibres provide an efficient way to couple multimode states of light to a two-dimensional array of Single-Photon Avalanche Detectors (SPADs), each of which has its own Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) for Time-Correlated Single-Photon-Counting (TCSPC). Exploiting this capability, we demonstrate multiplexed single-mode wavelength-to-time conversion of multimode states of light using a multicore-fibre photonic lantern with 121 single-mode cores, coupled in a one-to-one fashion to 121 SPADS on a 32 $\times$ 32 pixel CMOS SPAD array. The application of photonic lanterns for coupling multimode light to SPAD arrays in this manner may find wide-ranging applications in areas such as Raman spectroscopy, coherent LIDAR and quantum optics.