Quantitative phase gradient microscopy with spatially entangled photons

Abstract

We present an entanglement-based quantitative phase gradient microscopy technique that employs principles from quantum ghost imaging and ghost diffraction. In this method, a transparent sample is illuminated by both photons of an entangled pair - one detected in the near-field (position) and the other in the far-field (momentum). Due to the strong correlations offered by position-momentum entanglement, both conjugate observables can be inferred nonlocally, effectively enabling simultaneous access to the sample's transmission and phase gradient information. This dual-domain measurement allows for the quantitative recovery of the full amplitude and phase profile of the sample. Unlike conventional classical and quantum phase imaging methods, our approach requires no interferometry, spatial scanning, microlens arrays, or iterative phase-retrieval algorithms, thereby circumventing many of their associated limitations. Furthermore, intrinsic temporal correlations between entangled photons provide robustness against dynamic and structured background light. We demonstrate quantitative phase and amplitude imaging with a spatial resolution of 2.76 $\mu$m and a phase sensitivity of $\lambda /100$ using femtowatts of illuminating power, representing the highest performance reported to date in quantum phase imaging. This technique opens new possibilities for non-invasive imaging of photosensitive samples, wavefront sensing in adaptive optics, and imaging under complex lighting environments.

References in corpus (35)

• Quantum sensing
• Wide-field, high-resolution Fourier ptychographic microscopy
• Advances in Photonic Quantum Sensing
• Experimental realization of sub-shot-noise quantum imaging
• Analysis and interpretation of high transverse entanglement in optical parametric down conversion
• Imaging with quantum states of light
• Demonstration of Dispersion-Cancelled Quantum-Optical Coherence Tomography
• Super-resolution enhancement by quantum image scanning microscopy
• Real applications of quantum imaging
• A kilopixel array of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors
• Realisation of the first sub shot noise wide field microscope
• Quantum-enhanced standoff detection using correlated photon pairs
• Introduction to the Transverse Spatial Correlations in Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion through the Biphoton Birth Zone
• Quantum Imaging beyond the Diffraction Limit by Optical Centroid Measurements
• A superconducting-nanowire single-photon camera with 400,000 pixels
• Quantum imaging with sub-Poissonian light: challenges and perspectives in optical metrology
• Transverse Entanglement Migration in Hilbert Space
• Entangled-Photon Imaging of a Pure Phase Object
• Scalable Spatial Super-Resolution using Entangled Photons
• Imaging and time stamping of photons with nanosecond resolution in Timepix based optical cameras
• Super-Resolution Quantum Imaging at the Heisenberg Limit
• Multidimensional quantum-enhanced target detection via spectro-temporal correlation measurements
• Quantitative phase microscopies: accuracy comparison
• Correlation Plenoptic Imaging With Entangled Photons
• Quantum spatial superresolution by optical centroid measurements
• Quantum enhanced non-interferometric quantitative phase imaging
• Quantum illumination imaging with a single-photon avalanche diode camera
• Intensity interferometry for holography with quantum and classical light
• Characterisation of a single photon event camera for quantum imaging
• Ray-tracing with quantum correlated photons to image a 3D scene
• Snapshot hyperspectral imaging with quantum correlated photons
• Quantum correlation light-field microscope with extreme depth of field
• Biphoton State Reconstruction via Phase Retrieval Methods
• Characterizing Biphoton Spatial Wave Function Dynamics with Quantum Wavefront Sensing
• Reconfigurable phase contrast microscopy with correlated photon pairs