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Physical Review A

Subwavelength coincidence interference with classical thermal light

Kaige Wang, De-Zhong Cao

Published Oct 8, 2004• 119 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We show that a thermal light source which is random in the transverse direction can produce a sub-wavelength double slit interference in a joint intensity measurement. This is the classical version of quantum lithography, and it can be explained with the correlation of rays instead of the entanglement of photons.
DOI
10.1103/physreva.70.041801

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High-precision measurements implemented with light are desired in all fields of science. However, light acts as a wave, and the Rayleigh criterion in classical optics yields a diffraction limit that prevents obtaining a resolution smaller than the wavelength. Sub-wavelength interference has potential application in lithography because it beats the classical Rayleigh resolution limit. Here, we carefully study second-order correlation theory to establish the physics behind sub-wavelength interference in photon coincidence detection. A Young's double slit experiment with pseudo-thermal light is performed to test the second-order correlation pattern. The results show that when two point detectors are scanned in different ways, super sub-wavelength interference patterns can be obtained. We then provide a theoretical explanation for this surprising result, and demonstrate that this explanation is also suitable for the results found for entangled light. Furthermore, we discuss the limitations of these types of super sub-wavelength interference patterns in quantum lithography.
We propose an incoherent interferometer which can partly modify the spatial correlation property of thermal light. Applying the interferometer to the two-photon double-slit interference with thermal light, we find that the subwavelength interference patterns appear in the intensity correlation not only between two same polarized photons at different positions but also between two orthogonally polarized photons at the same position. The latter can correspond to the two-photon double-slit interference using a two-photon entangled source. Our experimental result suggests that a thermal light source is capable of accomplishing subwavelength lithography technique to surpass the Rayleigh resolution limit.
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We study the generalized Young's double-slit interference for the beam produced in the spontaneously parametric down-conversion (SPDC). We find that the sub-wavelength lithography can occur macroscopically in both the two-photon intensity measurement and the single-photon spatial intensity correlation measurement. We show the visibility and the strength of the interference fringe related to the SPDC interaction. It may provide a strong quantum lithography with a moderate visibility in practical application.