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arXiv:2501.03617 · Applied Physics Letters

Experimental realization of scanning quantum microscopy

Valerio Flavio Gili, Claudia Piccinini, M. Safari Arabi, Pawan Kumar, Vira R. Besaga, Emma Brambila, Markus Gräfe, Thomas Pertsch, Frank Setzpfandt

Published Sep 5, 2022• 17 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum imaging is an ever expanding research field in which the aim is to exploit the quantum nature of light to enhance image reconstruction capabilities. Despite a number of successful demonstrations for quantum imaging, quantum microscopy still seems out of the range for practical applications due to different physical and technical reasons. Here, we propose an imaging method exploiting the quantum correlations of photon pairs and a scanning microscope to achieve fast, single mode quantum imaging. We first test our technique on a metal grating to estimate the resolution capabilities of our system. Moreover, we assess its potential in terms of the number of available independent pixels at full resolution compared to different quantum imaging approaches. Finally, we demonstrate scanning quantum microscopy of onion epithelial cells, paving the way toward scalable quantum microscopy for bio-physical applications. Our results, combined with the rapidly evolving photon-pair generation and detection technology toward the mid-infrared, could lead to an extension of quantum microscopy applications toward the mid-infrared to access the molecular fingerprint region.

DOI
10.1063/5.0095972

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Quantum imaging is an ever expanding research field in which the aim is to exploit the quantum nature of light to enhance image reconstruction capabilities. Despite a number of successful demonstrations for quantum imaging, quantum microscopy still seems out of the range for practical applications due to different physical and technical reasons. Here, we propose an imaging method exploiting the quantum correlations of photon pairs and a scanning microscope to achieve fast, single mode quantum imaging. We first test our technique on a metal grating to estimate the resolution capabilities of our system. Moreover, we assess its potential in terms of the number of available independent pixels at full resolution compared to different quantum imaging approaches. Finally, we demonstrate scanning quantum microscopy of onion epithelial cells, paving the way toward scalable quantum microscopy for bio-physical applications. Our results, combined with the rapidly evolving photon-pair generation and detection technology toward the mid-infrared, could lead to an extension of quantum microscopy applications toward the mid-infrared to access the molecular fingerprint region.
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The mid-infrared (MIR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum spans from 2- to 25-μmμ\mathrm{m}μm, serving as a valuable tool for accessing rich chemical information. Functional groups, lipids, and other complex molecules can be analyzed by optical absorption measurements due to their vibrational modes in the MIR spectral region. Over the past few decades, this field has faced challenges due to difficulties in generating MIR light and the limited maturity of detection systems in this spectral range. Quantum imaging with undetected light (QIUL) provides a spectrally tuneable photon-pair source, in which the sample can be illuminated with MIR light while visible (VIS) light is employed for detection and image reconstruction, overcoming the detection limitations and benefiting from the rich chemical information of the MIR spectral region. All previous QIUL implementations are based on spatial correlations, which are never perfect and thus hindered the imaging performance. In this work, we implement a raster-scanning QIUL method that is independent of the strength of the spatial correlations and achieves a spatial resolution beyond the limitations of these correlations.
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