Quantum lithography by coherent control of classical light pulses

Abstract

The smallest spot in optical lithography and microscopy is generally limited by diffraction. Quantum lithography, which utilizes interference between groups of N entangled photons, was recently proposed to beat the diffraction limit by a factor N. Here we propose a simple method to obtain N photons interference with classical pulses that excite a narrow multiphoton transition, thus shifting the "quantum weight" from the electromagnetic field to the lithographic material. We show how a practical complete lithographic scheme can be developed and demonstrate the underlying principles experimentally by two-photon interference in atomic Rubidium, to obtain focal spots that beat the diffraction limit by a factor of 2.

6 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to Opt. Express

References in corpus (3)

• Transform-limited pulses are not optimal for resonant multiphoton transitions
• Two photon absorption and coherent control with broadband down-converted light
• Nonlinear interactions with an ultrahigh flux of broadband entangled photons

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Spatial correlations in parametric down-conversion
• Real applications of quantum imaging
• Theory of Two-Photon Interactions with Broadband Down-Converted Light and Entangled Photons
• Super-Resolution Quantum Imaging at the Heisenberg Limit
• Quantum Imaging with Incoherent Photons
• Sub-Rayleigh Imaging via N-Photon Detection
• Classical Bound for Mach-Zehnder Super-Resolution
• Sub-Rayleigh Quantum Imaging
• Fundamental Quantum Limit to Multiphoton Absorption Rate for Monochromatic Light
• Design of a High Power Continuous Source of Broadband Down-Converted Light
• On the efficiency of quantum lithography
• Time-reversed two-photon interferometry for phase super-resolution
• Experimental demonstration of quantum lithography beyond diffraction limit via Rabi oscillations
• Imaging of Spatial Correlations of Two-Photon States
• Sub-wavelength position measurements with running wave driving fields
• Observing two-photon subwavelength interference of broadband chaotic light in polarization-selective Michelson interferometer
• The Generation of Super-Resolving Single-Photon Path-Entangled State
• Numerical Optical Centroid Measurements