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AIP conference proceedings

Imaging Beyond the Rayleigh Bound

Fabrizio Guerrieri, Lorenzo Maccone, Franco N. C. Wong, Jeffrey H. Shapiro, Simone Tisa, Franco Zappa, Timothy C. Ralph, Ping Koy Lam

Published Jan 1, 2011• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate resolution below an imaging system’s Rayleigh bound using an arbitrary object‐covering scan with focused illumination and N‐photon detection, as proposed by Giovannetti et al. [1]. We observed a resolution enhancement by a factor of ∼(N‐N̄max)1/2 with N̄max being the maximum average detected photon number in the image. Our results are in agreement with theory, which predicts this improvement factor up to the limit set by the size of the illuminator beam.

DOI
10.1063/1.3630161

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We demonstrate resolution below an imaging system’s Rayleigh bound using an arbitrary object‐covering scan with focused illumination and N‐photon detection, as proposed by Giovannetti et al. [1]. We observed a resolution enhancement by a factor of ∼(N‐N̄max)1/2 with N̄max being the maximum average detected photon number in the image. Our results are in agreement with theory, which predicts this improvement factor up to the limit set by the size of the illuminator beam.
The classical bound on image resolution defined by the Rayleigh limit can be beaten by exploiting the properties of quantum mechanical entanglement. If entangled photons are used as signal states, the best possible resolution is instead given by the Heisenberg limit, an improvement proportional to the number of entangled photons in the signal. In this letter, we present a novel application of entanglement by showing that the resolution obtained by an imaging system utilizing separable photons can be achieved by an imaging system making use of entangled photons, but with the advantage of a smaller aperture, thus resulting in a smaller and lighter system. This can be especially valuable in satellite imaging where weight and size play a vital role.
We propose a N-photon imaging scheme with the resolution reaching the fundamental Heisenberg limit. The key imaging element is a phase-controlled screen which introduces synchronous-position N-photon interference, giving rise to enhanced resolution that exceeds the well-known Rayleigh resolution limit by a factor of N. In the standard wide-field illumination situation, our imaging scheme requires an entangled source to illuminate the object. Besides, we show that classical light is also applicable to realize this Heisenberg-resolution imaging if a scanning-focused-beam illumination is used. Our N-photon imaging scheme is practically realizable by using current well-developed technology.
The quantum mechanical phenomenon of entanglement can be utilized to beat the the Rayleigh limit, the classical bound on image resolution. This is done by entangling the photons that are used as the signal states. Using entanglement, the best possible image resolution is instead given by the Heisenberg limit, an improvement proportional to the number of entangled photons in the signal. Here, we present a novel application of entanglement by inverting the above procedure. We show that the resolution obtained by an imaging system utilizing separable photons can be achieved by an imaging system making use of entangled photons, but with the advantage of a smaller aperture. This results in a smaller, lighter imaging system. Smaller imaging systems can be especially valuable in satellite imaging where weight and size play a vital role.