Heisenberg uncertainty principle and spatial resolution of optical microscope

Werner A. Hofer

We show by a statistical analysis of high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments, that the interpretation of the density of electron charge as a statistical quantity leads to a conflict with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Given the precision in these experiments we find that the uncertainty principle would be violated by close to two orders of magnitude, if this interpretation were correct. We are thus forced to conclude that the density of electron charge is a physically real, i.e., in principle precisely measurable quantity.

Mario Di Jorio

Marianne Breinig

Timur E. Gureyev, Alexander Kozlov, David M. Paganin +2 more

We show that the width of an arbitrary function and the width of the distribution of its values cannot be made arbitrarily small simultaneously. In the case of ergodic stochastic processes, an ensuing uncertainty relationship is then demonstrated for the product of correlation length and variance. A closely related uncertainty principle is also established for the average degree of fourth-order coherence and the spatial width of modes of bosonic quantum fields. However, it is shown that, in the case of stochastic and quantum observables, certain non-classical states with sub-Poissonian statistics, such as for example photon number squeezed states in quantum optics, can overcome the "classical" noise-resolution uncertainty limit. This uncertainty relationship, which is fundamentally different from the Heisenberg and related uncertainty principles, can define an upper limit for the information capacity of communication and imaging systems. It is expected to be useful in a variety of problems in classical and quantum optics and imaging.

R. Werner, Hofer

Narasimha S. Prasad, Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri

A reviewing of many published experimental and theoretical papers demonstrate that the resolving powers of microscopes, spectroscopes and telescopes can be enhanced by orders of magnitude better than old classical limits by various advanced techniques including de-convolution of the CW-response function of these instruments. Heisenberg's original analogy of limited resolution of a microscope, to support his mathematical uncertainty relation, is no longer justifiable today. Modern techniques of detecting single isolated atoms through fluorescence also over-ride this generalized uncertainty principle. Various nano-technology techniques are also making atoms observable and location precisely measurable. Even the traditional time-frequency uncertainty relation or bandwidth limit δvδt ≥ 1 can be circumvented while doing spectrometry with short pulses by deriving and de-convolving the pulse-response function of the spectrometer just as we do for CW input.