Multi-wavelength ghost imaging: a review

TL;DR

This review discusses the evolution of ghost imaging across multiple wavelengths, highlighting its diverse applications from microscopy to non-destructive inspection, driven by advances in detectors and physics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of multi-wavelength ghost imaging, emphasizing how wavelength influences technology and expands application domains.

Findings

Ghost imaging spans from XUV to THz, enabling diverse applications.

Wavelength determines imaging physics, resolution, and penetration.

Multi-wavelength GI offers low-dose, versatile imaging alternatives.

Abstract

Ghost imaging (GI) forms images from intensity-correlation data collected by a single-pixel detector, decoupling illumination and sensing. Since its quantum-photon origins, the technique has evolved through classical pseudothermal, computational and deep-learning variants to span an unprecedented spectral range--from extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) to terahertz (THz) waves and even matter waves. This review traces that evolution, highlighting how wavelength dictates modulators, detectors and propagation physics and, in turn, the attainable penetration depth, resolution and dose. We survey X-ray/XUV implementations that deliver low-damage microscopy, visible/near-IR systems that achieve video-rate lidar through fog and water, mid-IR platforms that extract molecular fingerprints in photon-starved conditions, and THz schemes that provide non-destructive inspection of concealed structures. These advances collectively position multi-wavelength GI as a versatile, low-dose alternative wherever conventional focal-plane arrays falter.