Quantum-secured single-pixel imaging with enhanced security

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum-secured single-pixel imaging technique that leverages photon pair correlations to detect deception attempts, offering enhanced security over existing methods and practical applicability.

Contribution

It presents a novel quantum-secured imaging method utilizing non-classical photon correlations, with security analysis and proof-of-principle demonstrations showing improved deception detection.

Findings

Detects deception attempts using polarization-correlation analysis

Rejects chaotic light illumination through photon heralding

Provides trustworthy images with enhanced security

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel quantum-secured single-pixel imaging method that utilizes non-classical correlations of a photon pair. Our method can detect any attempts to deceive it by exploiting a non-classical correlation of photon pairs while rejecting strong chaotic light illumination through photon heralding. A security analysis based on polarization-correlation has been conducted, demonstrating that our method has improved security compared to existing quantum-secured imaging. More specifically, a partial deceiving attack, which sends a mixture of a true and a false signal, can be detected with our proposed analysis, while currently employed methods cannot. We also provide proof-of-principle demonstrations of our method and trustworthy images reconstructed using our security analysis. Our method can be developed using matured techniques used in quantum secure communication, thus offering a promising direction for practical applications in secure imaging.