Low-light-level imaging techniques have application in many diverse fields, ranging from biological sciences to security. A high-quality digital camera based on a multi-megapixel array will typically record an image by collecting of order 105 photons per pixel, but by how much could this photon flux be reduced? In this work we demonstrate a single-photon imaging system based on a time-gated intensified camera from which the image of an object can be inferred from very few detected photons. We show that a ghost-imaging configuration, where the image is obtained from photons that have never interacted with the object, is a useful approach for obtaining images with high signal-to-noise ratios. The use of heralded single photons ensures that the background counts can be virtually eliminated from the recorded images. By applying principles of image compression and associated image reconstruction, we obtain high-quality images of objects from raw data formed from an average of fewer than one detected photon per image pixel.
Correlated photon imaging, popularly known as ghost imaging, is a technique whereby an image is formed from light that has never interacted with the object. In ghost imaging experiments, two correlated light fields are produced. One of these fields illuminates the object, and the other field is measured by a spatially resolving detector. In the quantum regime, these correlated light fields are produced by entangled photons created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. To date, all correlated photon ghost imaging experiments have scanned a single-pixel detector through the field of view to obtain spatial information. However, scanning leads to poor sampling efficiency, which scales inversely with the number of pixels, N, in the image. In this work, we overcome this limitation by using a time-gated camera to record the singlephoton events across the full scene. We obtain high-contrast images, 90%, in either the image plane or the far field of the photon pair source, taking advantage of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-like correlations in position and momentum of the photon pairs. Our images contain a large number of modes, >500, creating opportunities in low-light-level imaging and in quantum information processing.
Conventional imaging systems rely upon illumination light that is scattered or transmitted by the object and subsequently imaged. Ghost-imaging systems based on parametric downconversion use twin beams of position-correlated signal and idler photons. One beam illuminates an object while the image information is recovered from a second beam that has never interacted with the object. In this Letter, we report on a camera-based ghost imaging system where the correlated photons have significantly different wavelengths. Infrared photons at 1550 nm wavelength illuminate the object and are detected by an InGaAs/InP single-photon avalanche diode. The image data are recorded from the coincidently detected, position-correlated, visible photons at a wavelength of 460 nm using a highly efficient, low-noise, photon-counting camera. The efficient transfer of the image information from infrared illumination to visible detection wavelengths and the ability to count single photons allows the acquisition of an image while illuminating the object with an optical power density of only 100 pJ cm −2 s −1 . This wavelengthtransforming ghost-imaging technique has potential for the imaging of light-sensitive specimens or where covert operation is desired. Low-light-level imaging at infrared wavelengths has many applications within both the technological and biological sectors. These applications span covert security systems, the imaging of light-sensitive biological samples, and imaging within semiconductor devices. However, given that the majority of single-photon-sensitive, large-format detector arrays are siliconbased and therefore ineffective at wavelengths greater than 1 μm, the technological difficulties with such applications are readily apparent: crafting a camera with high quantum efficiency and low noise at infrared wavelengths is difficult and expensive.In this Letter, we circumvent the lack of infrared cameras that combine low-noise with single-photon sensitivity by performing the imaging using the so-called "ghost imaging" method. This method utilizes the spatial correlations between photons in the two output beams, signal and idler, generated through the spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) process [1].In the 1990s, it was shown how the correlations between photons generated through SPDC could be utilized to create imaging systems [2,3]. These ghost-imaging systems rely on the strong position correlations between the beams of signal and idler photons that are produced by the SPDC process [4]. In a ghost-imaging system a transmissive object is placed in the idler beam and the transmitted photons are measured using a single-element, heralding detector. The use of a single-element detector means that measurements of photons that probe the object reveal no spatial information. In parallel to these measurements of the idler photons, a scanning single-element detector measures the corresponding signal photons-but since these signal photons do not interact with the object, again no image is formed. However, although the ...
Quantum ghost imaging uses photon pairs produced from parametric downconversion to enable an alternative method of image acquisition. Information from either one of the photons does not yield an image, but an image can be obtained by harnessing the correlations between them. Here we present an examination of the resolution limits of such ghost imaging systems. In both conventional imaging and quantum ghost imaging the resolution of the image is limited by the point-spread function of the optics associated with the spatially resolving detector. However, whereas in conventional imaging systems the resolution is limited only by this point spread function, in ghost imaging we show that the resolution can be further degraded by reducing the strength of the spatial correlations inherent in the downconversion process.
As normally used, no commercially available camera has a low-enough dark noise to directly produce video recordings of double-slit interference at the photon-by-photon level, because readout noise significantly contaminates or overwhelms the signal. In this work, noise levels are significantly reduced by turning on the camera only when the presence of a photon has been heralded by the arrival, at an independent detector, of a time-correlated photon produced via parametric downconversion. This triggering scheme provides the improvement required for direct video imaging of Young's double-slit experiment with single photons, allowing clarified versions of this foundational demonstration. Further, we introduce variations on this experiment aimed at promoting discussion of the role spatial coherence plays in such a measurement. We also emphasize complementary aspects of single-photon measurement, where imaging yields (transverse) position information, while diffraction yields the transverse momentum, and highlight the roles of transverse position and momentum correlations between down-converted photons, including examples of "ghost" imaging and diffraction. The videos can be accessed at http://sun.iwu.edu/~gspaldin/SinglePhotonVideos.html online.
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