Polarimetric full-wavefield coherent lidar

Coherent lidar recovers a scene’s geometry and motion by measuring the time-of-flight and Doppler shift of backscattered light. However, conventional coherent lidar systems do not capture the full optical wavefield—comprising time-varying amplitude, phase, and polarization—and therefore forfeit access to an additional, rich source of scene information: surface material properties encoded in the polarization state of backscattered light and in the statistical properties of coherent polarization speckle. Prior approaches to full-wavefield sensing require complex benchtop optics for ultrafast modulation and detection, or do not address the modeling and recovery of the surface polarimetric response, which is scrambled by inter-reflections within the lidar’s internal optics. Here, we introduce a polarimetric full-wavefield coherent lidar system that recovers a surface point’s Jones matrix—encoding material and geometric surface properties as observed through the system’s illumination and collection aperture—along with depth and velocity, all from a single measurement. We achieve this by (1) repurposing an off-the-shelf coherent optical modem—conventionally used for telecommunications—for ultrafast full-wavefield modulation and detection, and (2) developing a polarization-aware image formation model and inverse method that disentangles the system’s optical response from that of a target surface. Overall, the approach delivers millimeter-accurate depth, robust velocimetry, and polarimetric surface properties, all with microsecond-scale exposures, eye-safe optical power, and insensitivity to ambient light.