English

Sub-Rayleigh Quantum Imaging

Quantum Physics 2009-02-25 v1

Abstract

No imaging apparatus can produce perfect images: spatial resolution is limited by the Rayleigh diffraction bound that is a consequence of the imager's finite spatial extent. We show some N-photon strategies that permit resolution of details that are smaller than this bound, attaining either a 1/sqrt(N) enhancement (standard quantum limit) or a 1/N enhancement (Heisenberg limit) over standard techniques. In the incoherent imaging regime, the methods presented are loss resistant, because they can be implemented with classical-state light sources. Our results may be of importance in many applications: microscopy, telescopy, lithography, metrology, etc.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0804.2875,
  title  = {Sub-Rayleigh Quantum Imaging},
  author = {Vittorio Giovannetti and Seth Lloyd and Lorenzo Maccone and Jeffrey H. Shapiro},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.2875},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, two figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:32:16.192Z