Multiphoton Quantum Imaging using Natural Light

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum imaging method using natural thermal light sources and conditional photon detection, achieving enhanced image contrast and robustness against environmental noise, demonstrated with a photon-number-resolving camera.

Contribution

It presents a novel quantum imaging scheme that leverages natural light and conditional detection to improve image quality, overcoming limitations of traditional quantum sources.

Findings

Exponential enhancement in image contrast achieved.

Quantum images produced from vacuum fluctuations.

Implementation demonstrated with a photon-number-resolving camera.

Abstract

It is thought that schemes for quantum imaging are fragile against realistic environments in which the background noise is often stronger than the nonclassical signal of the imaging photons. Unfortunately, it is unfeasible to produce brighter quantum light sources to alleviate this problem. Here, we overcome this paradigmatic limitation by developing a quantum imaging scheme that relies on the use of natural sources of light. This is achieved by performing conditional detection on the photon number of the thermal light field scattered by a remote object. Specifically, the conditional measurements in our scheme enable us to extract quantum features of the detected thermal photons to produce quantum images with improved signal-to-noise ratios. This technique shows a remarkable exponential enhancement in the contrast of quantum images. Surprisingly, this measurement scheme enables the possibility of producing images from the vacuum fluctuations of the light field. This is experimentally demonstrated through the implementation of a single-pixel camera with photon-number-resolving capabilities. As such, we believe that our scheme opens a new paradigm in the field of quantum imaging. It also unveils the potential of combining natural light sources with nonclassical detection schemes for the development of robust quantum technologies.