Optical sectioning in induced coherence tomography with frequency-entangled photons

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel optical sectioning method using induced coherence with frequency-entangled photons, enabling deeper bio-imaging with potentially submicron resolution by leveraging different probing and detection wavelengths.

Contribution

It presents a new induced coherence tomography scheme that allows probing with one wavelength and measuring with another, enhancing bio-imaging capabilities.

Findings

Proposed a scheme for optical sectioning based on induced coherence.

Demonstrated potential for submicron axial resolution.

Enables deeper tissue imaging using different wavelengths for probing and detection.

Abstract

We demonstrate a different scheme to perform optical sectioning of a sample based on the concept of induced coherence [Zou et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 67, 318 (1991)]. This can be viewed as a different type of optical coherence tomography scheme where the varying reflectivity of the sample along the direction of propagation of an optical beam translates into changes of the degree of first-order coherence between two beams. As a practical advantage the scheme allows probing the sample with one wavelength and measuring photons with another wavelength. In a bio-imaging scenario, this would result in a deeper penetration into the sample because of probing with longer wavelengths, while still using the optimum wavelength for detection. The scheme proposed here could achieve submicron axial resolution by making use of nonlinear parametric sources with broad spectral bandwidth emission.