Entangled-photon imaging

Gerald N. Gilbert, Michael Hamrick, Yaakov S. Weinstein +2 more

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.

John C. Howell

Phillip F. Schewe

Ayman F. Abouraddy, Bahaa E. A. Saleh, Alexander V. Sergienko +1 more

The use of entangled photons in an imaging system can exhibit effects that cannot be mimicked by any other two-photon source, whatever the strength of the correlations between the two photons. We consider a two-photon imaging system in which one photon is used to probe a remote (transmissive or scattering) object, while the other serves as a reference. We discuss the role of entanglement versus correlation in such a setting, and demonstrate that entanglement is a prerequisite for achieving distributed quantum imaging.

Jingyang Cao, Mu Zhou, Ruichen Zhang +3 more

As an important part of underwater optical technology, underwater imaging plays a crucial role in accurately capturing underwater targets and environmental features. Facing the challenges of complex ocean environments and severe photon attenuation, quantum imaging breaks through the limitations of traditional optical imaging technology by utilizing the characteristics of two-photon entanglement and time-space correlation, thus offering a new perspective on ocean turbulence. To this end, we propose a new underwater entangled-photon quantum imaging system. Specifically, we first construct an entangled photon quantum imaging physical model through ocean long-exposure turbulence and then exploit an entangled light coincidence imaging reconstruction method to image the target object. Furthermore, in response to the problem that ocean environment has a great impact on photons, we develop a photon capture probability method based on entangled photon pairs to reduce the impact of the ocean turbulence noise on imaging and improve the underwater target imaging resolution. We experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by showing that even in harsh ocean environments, quantum imaging performs superior resolution capabilities over traditional light source imaging techniques.

Krishna Thyagarajan