A quantum-enhanced wide-field phase imager

• Main Authors: Camphausen, Robin, Cuevas, Álvaro, Duempelmann, Luc, Terborg, Roland A, Wajs, Ewelina, Tisa, Simone, Ruggeri, Alessandro, Cusini, Iris, Steinlechner, Fabian, Pruneri, Valerio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 24-05-2021
• Subjects: Physics - Optics; Physics - Quantum Physics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2105.11394

Science Advances 7 (2021) eabj2155 Quantum techniques can be used to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio in
optical imaging. Leveraging the latest advances in single photon avalanche
diode array cameras and multi-photon detection techniques, here we introduce a
super-sensitive phase imager, which uses space-polarization hyper-entanglement
to operate over a large field-of-view without the need of scanning operation.
We show quantum-enhanced imaging of birefringent and non-birefringent phase
samples over large areas, with sensitivity improvements over equivalent
classical measurements carried out with equal number of photons. The practical
applicability is demonstrated by imaging a biomedical protein microarray
sample. Our quantum-enhanced phase imaging technology is inherently scalable to
high resolution images, and represents an essential step towards practical
quantum imaging.