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arXiv:2112.03211 · Journal of Applied Physics

Quantum advantage in biometric authentication with single photons

Iannis K. Kominis, Michail Loulakis

Published Feb 24, 2022• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

It was recently proposed to use the human visual system’s ability to perform efficient photon counting in order to devise a new biometric methodology. The relevant biometric “fingerprint” is represented by the optical losses light suffers along several different paths from the cornea to the retina. The “fingerprint” is accessed by interrogating a subject on perceiving or not weak light flashes, containing few tens of photons, so that the subject’s visual system works at the threshold of perception, at which regime optical losses play a significant role. Here, we show that if, instead of weak laser light pulses, we use quantum light sources, in particular, single-photon sources, we obtain a quantum advantage, which translates into a reduction of the interrogation time required to achieve the desired performance. Besides the particular application on biometrics, our work further demonstrates that quantum light sources can provide deeper insights when studying human vision.

DOI
10.1063/5.0080942

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It was recently proposed to use the human visual system’s ability to perform efficient photon counting in order to devise a new biometric methodology. The relevant biometric “fingerprint” is represented by the optical losses light suffers along several different paths from the cornea to the retina. The “fingerprint” is accessed by interrogating a subject on perceiving or not weak light flashes, containing few tens of photons, so that the subject’s visual system works at the threshold of perception, at which regime optical losses play a significant role. Here, we show that if, instead of weak laser light pulses, we use quantum light sources, in particular, single-photon sources, we obtain a quantum advantage, which translates into a reduction of the interrogation time required to achieve the desired performance. Besides the particular application on biometrics, our work further demonstrates that quantum light sources can provide deeper insights when studying human vision.
It was recently proposed to use the human visual system’s ability to perform efficient photon counting in order to devise a new biometric authentication methodology. The relevant “fingerprint” is represented by the optical losses light suffers along different paths from the cornea to the retina. The “fingerprint” is accessed by interrogating a subject on perceiving or not weak light flashes, containing few tens of photons, thus probing the subject’s visual system at the threshold of perception, at which regime optical losses play a significant role. The name “quantum biometrics” derives from the fact that the photon statistics of the illuminating light, as well as the quantum efficiency at the light detection level of rod cells, are central to the method. Here we elaborate further on this methodology, addressing several aspects like aging effects of the method’s “fingerprint,” as well as its inter-subject variability. We then review recent progress towards the experimental realization of the method. Finally, we summarize a recent proposal to use quantum light sources, in particular a single photon source, in order to enhance the performance of the authentication process. This further corroborates the “quantum” character of the methodology and alludes to the emerging field of quantum vision.
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The human eye contains millions of rod photoreceptor cells, and each one is a single-photon detector. Whether people can actually see a single photon|which requires the rod signal to propagate through the rest of the noisy visual system and be perceived in the brain|has been the subject of research for nearly 100 years. Early experiments hinted that people could see just a few photons, but classical light sources are poor tools for answering these questions. Single-photon sources have opened up a new area of vision research, providing the best evidence yet that humans can indeed see single photons, and could even be used to test quantum effects through the visual system. We discuss our program to study the lower limits of human vision with a heralded single-photon source based on spontaneous parametric downconversion, and present two proposed experiments to explore quantum effects through the visual system: testing the perception of superposition states, and using a human observer as a detector in a Bell test.
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